Transcript Creative Cognitive Processes in Higher Education

Outline
0 Literature Review
0 Current Study
0 Methods
0 Results
0 Discussion
Literature Review
0 Student-faculty interactions generally have a positive
influence on educational outcomes, such as:
0 Cognitive growth and development of college students
(Astin, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005)
0 Retention (Lau, 2003; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1977)
0 Recent researchers have found that not all kinds of
interaction have the same impact on student
outcomes
Literature Review (cont.)
0 Teaching Clarity
0 Refers to teaching methods where “faculty demonstrate a
level of transparency in their approach to instruction and goal
setting in an effort to help students better understand
expectations and comprehend subject matter” (BrckaLorenz,
Ribera, Kinzie, & Cole, p. 2)
0 Positive relationship with various educational outcomes such
as student achievement and satisfaction (Hativa, 1998;
Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Chesebro & McCroskey, 2001).
0 Good Faculty Practices
0 Relationship between student and faculty that moves beyond
the formal instruction that takes place during class (Crisp,
2009)
The Current Study
0 Main purpose: To explore how to measure student
interactions with faculty in a concise way as part of a
larger survey.
0 In particular, we are interested in:
0 whether the student-faculty interaction items load onto
two distinct components,
0 if these two components have good measurement
properties,
0 whether these components are good predictors of GPA
and persistence into the second year.
Method: Participants
0 Data from the National Survey of Student Engagement
(NSSE) 2011 pilot study (NSSE 2.0)
0 1,006 first-year and 2,578 senior students attending
19 U.S. institutions
0 Institutions represented variety of regions, Carnegie
classifications, and enrollment sizes
0 34% males and 66% females
0 79% with full-time enrollment status
Method: Measures
0 All relevant survey items from the 2011 NSSE 2.0 pilot
administration were included in the EFA.
0 CFA analyses were done for those items that fell into
the student-faculty interactions components.
0 For the predicative validity analyses, survey responses
were also merged with institution-provided gradepoint-average (GPA) and persistence outcome.
0 Controls: gender, ethnicity, parental education level, and
prior academic ability (composite SAT and ACT scores)
Method: Analyses
0 A variable was created using a random number generator that
put each student into one of two groups.
0 The first group consisting of half of the sample was used to
conduct the exploratory factor analyses.
0 Direct oblimin rotation (oblique) used
0 The second half was used in the confirmatory factor analysis.
0 AMOS used to build the model
0 The entire sample was used for the predictive validity analyses.
0 Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models for academic
year GPA
0 Logistic regression models for persistence
Confirmatory Factor Analysis:
Model-fit Results
Model statistics
N
GFI
CFI
RMSEA
PCLOSE
First-year
306
.999
.999
.0003
.90
Seniors
631
.999
.999
.0140
.93
Note: Strong model fit is reflected by GFI greater than .85,
CFI greater than .90, RMSEA less than .06, and PCLOSE greater than .05.
Path Model for Good Faculty Practices
and Teaching Clarity Subscales
Items, CFA Factor Loadings, and
Cronbach’s Alphas for First-Year and
Senior Students
Item
FY Factor Loading
SR Factor Loading
GFP1
Got to know you and your background
.57
.66
GFP2
Taught in ways that encouraged your active participation
.71
.86
GFP3
Created an atmosphere conducive to your learning
.99
.93
.817
.857
Cronbach’s α
TC1
Clearly explained course goals and requirements
.66
.78
TC2
Taught course sessions in an organized way
.79
.84
TC3
Used examples or illustrations to explain difficult points
.76
.83
.832
.862
Cronbach’s α
Predicting GPA
R2
ΔR2
Beta
Control Variables
.247
--
--
Teaching Clarity
.263
.016
.127
Good Faculty Practices
.280
.033
.184
Control Variables
.164
--
--
Teaching Clarity
.177
.013
.114
Good Faculty Practices
.210
.046
.217
First-year
Seniors
Predicting Persistence
0 Those in the middle 50% on Teaching Clarity have
79% greater odds of being retained than those in the
bottom quartile of Teaching Clarity
0 Those in the top quartile of Teaching Clarity have
53% greater odds of being retained than those in the
bottom quartile of Teaching Clarity
0 The average persistence rate difference between
those in the top and bottom quartile in Good Faculty
Practices was 7%
Limitations
0 NSSE is limited to those institutions that choose to
participate
0 Not all of the possible predictors of GPA and
persistence were available to us
0 Relied on self-reported perceptions of student
experiences
Discussion
0 These items included in a larger survey serve as a
good proxy for student-faculty interactions
0 Both the EFA and CFA suggest that these items make
two strong scales for teaching clarity and good faculty
practices that are also related to one another
0 As theorized from the literature, these measures for
teaching clarity and good faculty practices also
influence students’ GPA and persistence
Discussion (cont.)
0 These results would suggest that the more personal
interactions found in the good faculty practices scale, such
as got to know you and your background, that are much
less likely to be found on course evaluations might be a
more important predictor of student success
0 Measures like the short sets of items described previously
could provide additional information on some aspects of
classroom practices that are not being measured by course
evaluations, especially in light of the problems with course
evaluations and other assessments of instructor quality
Questions? Comments?
Contact Information
0 Amber D. Lambert – email: [email protected]
0 Louis M. Rocconi – email: [email protected]
0 Amy K. Ribera – email: [email protected]
0 Angie L. Miller – email: [email protected]
0 Yiran Dong – email: [email protected]
References
0 Astin, A. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey0
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Bass.
BrckaLorenz, A., Ribera, A., Kinzie, J., & Cole, E. (in press). Examining effective faculty
practice: Teaching clarity and student engagement. To Improve the Academy, 31.
Chesebro, J. L., & McCroskey, J. C. (2001). The relationship of teacher clarity and immediacy
with student state receiver apprehension, affect and cognitive learning. Communication
Education, 50(1), 59-68.
Crisp, G. (2009). Conceptualization and initial validation of the college student mentoring
scale. Journal of College Student Development, 50(2), 177-191.
Hativa, N. (1998). Lack of clarity in university teaching: A case study. Higher Education, 36(3),
353-381.
Lau, L. K. (2003). Institutional factors affecting student retention. Education, 124(1), 126–
136.
Pascarella, E. T., Terenzini, P. T. (1977). Patterns of student-faculty informal interaction
beyond the classroom and voluntary freshman attrition. Journal of Higher Education, 48(5),
540-552.
Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students(Vol. 2): A third decade
of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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