Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Multiple Source Use

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    Developing and validating a measure of epistemic competence beliefs to examine undergraduate students’ critical-analytic thinking in a multiple source use task
    (2024) Schoute, Eric Cornelis; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Background: This dissertation aimed to develop and validate a novel Epistemic Competence Beliefs Measure (ECBM) to capture students’ ability to identify and utilize relevant sources for complex issues. Epistemic competence was hypothesized to be critical in performing multiple source use (MSU) tasks, particularly in predicting critical-analytic thinking in argumentative essays. The study was conducted in two phases, focusing on the ECBM’s development, its content validity, and predictive validity in an MSU context. Methods: Phase 1 involved creating the ECBM’s based on epistemic beliefs and cognition theories, presenting students with controversial scenarios. Content validity was assessed by an international panel of experts. Phase 2 implemented the ECBM in a university course, collecting data through argumentative claim selection forms, search logs, notes, essays, and a retroactive behaviors questionnaire. Data were analyzed using content analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA, multiple linear regression, and regression trees to determine the ECBM’s predictive validity. Findings: The study revealed significant variability in students’ epistemic competence as measured on the ECBM, though no direct predictive relationship to enacted epistemic competence and exhibited critical-analytic thinking was established. Students’ critical-analytic thinking varied significantly, influenced by their GPA and TORR scores. Notably, students with higher relational reasoning abilities exhibited superior critical-analytic thinking in their essays, supporting the theorized link between these constructs. Implications: For future research, the ECBM can be refined and more closely integrated into the MSU project by aligning its completion with the task’s introduction. This integration may enhance students’ epistemic agency and awareness. Furthermore, diversifying study populations across different sociocultural contexts and employing Bayesian and mixed-methods analyses can provide deeper insights into epistemic competence and critical-analytic thinking. Practical implications suggest procedural adjustments to better align the MSU project with theoretical frameworks, potentially improving instructional practices. Conclusions: The novel Epistemic Competence Beliefs Measure is a meaningful contribution to the literature on epistemic beliefs as it unearthed theoretically and practically meaningful profiles of undergraduates’ appraisal of the characteristics of complex, controversial issues. The data-analytic focus on students’ variability rather than only consistency in characterizations of the scenarios highlighted the value of examining epistemic beliefs in a more situated, contextualized manner. This resulting findings of varying beliefs dispute the lingering assumption that epistemic beliefs are stable across contexts. While the assessment of the ECBM’s predictive validity identified no significant relations, the findings underscore the importance of relational reasoning to critical-analytic thinking. Future research should focus on refining the ECBM, exploring its applicability in diverse contexts, and employing comprehensive analytical methods to further elucidate these constructs.
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    The Expression and Enactment of Interest and Curiosity in a Multiple Source Use Task
    (2014) Grossnickle, Emily Marie; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Selecting and incorporating multiple text and non-text sources is an academic task that has been identified as both commonplace and challenging for undergraduate students. Although the term digital natives is frequently used to describe students of this generation, the degree to which undergraduate students prefer or effectively use digital as compared to print sources has been relatively unaddressed. Additionally, although individual differences such as knowledge have been identified as important for multiple source use and comprehension, the role of motivational variables has been under-examined and has focused on source use within a single medium (i.e., digital or print). This study investigated the role of two motivational variables, interest and curiosity. It examined the degree to which the confluence of these motivational variables in conjunction with knowledge predicted source selection, source use, and task performance when students were provided with multiple print and digital sources. Undergraduate students wore a head-mounted videocamera as they developed a PowerPoint presentation on Alzheimer's disease based on 16 available resources (8 print and 8 digital). Follow-up interviews were conducted to determine the degree to which interest and curiosity influenced students' selection and use of sources. Measures of topic knowledge, topic interest, and epistemic trait curiosity were assessed a priori. A coding scheme for capturing use of print and digital sources was developed for the purpose of this study. Differences across source medium and source type (e.g., textbook, image) were evident. Although students exhibited preferences for selecting several types of sources in a digital format, they spent twice as long using print sources, incorporated more print sources into their presentations, and developed more inferences based on print sources. Students with more knowledge, interest, and curiosity spent more time using print sources but less time using digital sources. Further, students' presentations revealed a tendency to replicate material from sources rather than to draw inferences, make conclusions, or integrate material across sources. Findings suggest the tendency for undergraduate students to focus their processes on the management of information rather source integration particularly when using digital compared to print sources.
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    MODELING MULTIPLE SOURCE USE: USING LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS AND SOURCE USE BEHAVIORS TO PREDICT RESPONSE QUALITY
    (2014) List, Alexandra; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Multiple source use (MSU) has been identified as both a critical competency and a key challenge for today's students, living in the digital age (Goldman & Scardamalia, 2013b). Theoretical models of multiple source use provide insights into how the MSU process unfolds and identify points at which students may encounter challenges (i.e., in source selection, processing, and evaluation, Rouet & Britt). However, understandings of MSU have been limited by two gaps in the literature. First, while points of challenge in students' MSU process have been examined independently, comprehensive models considering the joint role of source selection, processing, and evaluation in task performance have not been fully investigated. Further, while research on MSU has focused on students' behaviors when engaging with texts, individual difference factors have been considered only to a limited extent, despite their theorized importance (Rouet, 2006). The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which multiple source use behaviors (i.e., source selection, processing, and evaluation) and learner characteristics (i.e., prior knowledge, domain general source evaluation behaviors, stances on the target issue) predicted open-ended task performance, both independently and in conjunction with one another. Participants were 197 undergraduate students, asked to complete measures assessing their prior knowledge, stances on the Arab Spring in Egypt, the topic of the task, and domain general source evaluation behaviors. Then, participants were tasked with using a library of six sources to respond to a controversial prompt about a contemporary event (i.e., Arab Spring in Egypt). While students engaged with sources, log data of source use were collected (e.g., number of sources accessed, time on texts) and participants were asked to rate sources accessed in terms of trustworthiness, usefulness, and interestingness. Four indices were used to assess open-ended response quality: (a) word count, (b) the number of arguments included in students' responses, (c) scores on the SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982), reflecting the extent to which students' responses integrated and evaluated information presented across texts, and (d) the number of citations in students' answers. Key findings included the role of students' ratings of source interestingness and time on texts as predictive of open-ended task performance. Further, students' accessing of document information about sources (e.g., author credentials that may aid in source evaluation, Britt & Aglinskas, 2002) and trustworthiness evaluations were found to be associated with SOLO scores. Overall, as compared to multiple source use behaviors, learner characteristics were found to have a more limited effect on task performance. Findings are discussed and implications for theoretical conceptions of multiple source use and instructional practice are presented.