Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2759
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Item Reframing Responsibility for Academic Success: A Causal Model Measuring the Impact of Student Attributes in the First Year of College(2006-09-07) Murray, Michele C; Milem, Jeffrey F.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this single-institution study was to investigate the predictive power of student attributes in a path analytic model for academic success in the first year of college. Student attributes were defined as academic self-concept, social self-concept and self-determination; academic success was measured by cumulative college grade point average. The conceptual model tested in this study blends psychological theories of student attributes with Astin's (1991) input-environment-outcome (I-E-O) model, a sociological model of college impact. Using descriptive and path analytic techniques, this study contributes to assessment philosophy by demonstrating that student attributes predict academic success beyond what can be explained by prior achievement and involvement. By examining the contributions of student attributes to academic and social involvement and to subsequent achievement, this study describes higher education as a partnership between student and institution for which both have responsibility. The findings of the study suggested at least through conclusions. First, accounting for student attributes contributes to an understanding of academic success. Rather than focus on the institution's responsibility to engage students, this study demonstrates that academic and social involvement and achievement are products, at least in part, of students' academic self-concept and self-determination. Second, results from this study indicate that measurable change in student attributes occurs during one year, a portion of which is attributable to students' academic and social involvement. These findings substantiate previous research on the impact of involvement on students' personal development (Astin, 1994; Berger & Milem, 1999) and affirm the benefits of college attendance. Third, this study demonstrates that the effects of the environment within the classic I-E-O model (Astin, 1991) are mediated through academic self-concept. These findings reframe responsibility for student success by highlighting students' dispositions toward the academic enterprise as the strongest predictor of involvement and success. Consequently this study offers a different perspective of students' academic and social involvement. Rather than referring to involvement as an indication of the environment (Astin, 1994; Kuh, 1991), this study suggests that involvement behaviors are a measure of students' responsibility toward their collegiate experiences. The findings of this study have implications for future research, practice, and policy.Item Using Comprehension Strategies with Authentic Text in a College Chemistry Course(2004-11-24) Cain, Stephen Daniel; Holliday, William G.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)College science students learn important topics by reading textbooks, which contain dense technical prose. Comprehension strategies are known to increase learning from reading. One class of comprehension strategies, called elaboration strategies, is intended to link new information with prior knowledge. Elaboration strategies have an appeal in science courses where new information frequently depends on previously learned information. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an elaboration strategy in an authentic college environment. General chemistry students read text about Lewis structures, figures drawn by chemists to depict molecules, while assigned to use either an elaboration strategy, namely elaborative interrogation, or another strategy, rereading, which served as a placebo control. Two texts of equal length were employed in this pretest-posttest experimental design. One was composed by the researcher. The other was an excerpt from a college textbook and contained a procedure for constructing Lewis structures. Students (N = 252) attending a large community college were randomly assigned to one of the two texts and assigned one of the two strategies. The elaborative interrogation strategy was implemented with instructions to answer why-questions posed throughout the reading. Answering why-questions has been hypothesized to activate prior knowledge of a topic, and thus to aid in cognitively connecting new material with prior knowledge. The rereading strategy was implemented with instructions to read text twice. The use of authentic text was one of only a few instances of applying elaborative interrogation with a textbook. In addition, previous studies have generally focused on the learning of facts contained in prose. The application of elaborative interrogation to procedural text has not been previously reported. Results indicated that the more effective strategy was undetermined when reading authentic text in this setting. However, prior knowledge level was identified as a statistically significant factor for learning from authentic text. That is, students with high prior knowledge learned more, regardless of assigned strategy. Another descriptive study was conducted with a separate student sample (N = 34). Previously reported Lewis structure research was replicated. The trend of difficulty for 50 structures in the earlier work was supported.