Browsing by Subject "Self regulation"
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Item Fostering Agency and Writing Self-Efficacy: The Making of a Writer(2011-08) Mascle, Deanna M.; Still, Brian; Kemp, Fred; Rickly, RebeccaWriting is an essential professional skill as well as important life skill. The goal of writing instruction is to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to successfully meet future writing challenges. However, despite years of writing instruction, many writers struggle to transfer skills and knowledge from one context to another. One reason for this struggle is that even after years of instruction most people are highly apprehensive about writing and do not consider themselves writers. In order to overcome the problem of transfer, we must improve our understanding about writing apprehension and the role it plays in the transformation to writer. Writing research and theory has brought us to the current understanding that writing is a set of complex skills that is contextually situated and socially influenced, and yet most writing instruction focuses on general, basic skills. As a result, instruction does little to lessen writing apprehension and foster the transformation to writer. This mixed methods study focused on the transformation into writers of 17 teachers attending a National Writing Project (NWP) Summer Institute and addressed the impact of immersion in this learning community on writing apprehension. This research spanned a year and studied the writing apprehension of the participants before, during, and after their transformation by focusing on the role that agency and self-efficacy played in the transformation to writer. NWP’s mission is to improve the teaching of writing, and central to that goal is the belief that teachers who write are better writing teachers. This makes the transformation of teacher into writer the primary purpose of the NWP Summer Institute. The Summer Institute is organized as a learning community focused on professional development, research, and leadership as well as writing. Most of the 17 women involved in this learning community experienced a decrease in writing apprehension while undergoing the transformation to writer and maintained that confidence level during the following year. The writers’ reflection journals reveal that as apprehension decreases evidence of self-regulating activity, such as goal setting and metawriting, increases as does agency and self-efficacy. These findings contribute to our understanding of the transformation to writer and how this transformation connects with writing apprehension as well as how this transformation can be fostered in a learning community which attends to agency and writing self-efficacy.Item Improving college students’ self-knowledge through engagement in a learning frameworks course(2016-05) Stano, Nancy Kathleen; Schallert, Diane L.; Weinstein, Claire E.; Acee, Taylor W.; Cawthon, Stephanie; Whittaker, TiffanyThis study tested hypotheses about the accuracy of students’ strategic learning self-assessments using a sample of students enrolled in an undergraduate learning frameworks course at a highly competitive research institution. Previous studies demonstrated that learning frameworks courses significantly improve grade point averages, semester-to-semester retention rates, and graduate rates (Weinstein et al., 1997; Weinstein, 1994). Less is known, however, about changes that happen during the semester. Researchers have found that students tend to overestimate their academic abilities (Miller & Geraci, 2011), but that improving participant skill levels increases their ability to recognize the limitations of their abilities (Kruger & Dunning, 2009). This study built on the existing learning frameworks and calibration literatures and addressed the following research questions: Does students’ calibration accuracy improve from the beginning to the end of a semester-long strategic learning course (a type of learning frameworks course)? Does generation status influence calibration? What is the relationship between an individual’s theory of intelligence and their strategic learning calibration? And, is there a relationship between accurate self-assessment and demographic factors such as family income and ethnicity? The methods used in this study included self and objective assessments of strategic learning for 10 learning factors known to impact student success. Based on the Model of Strategic Learning (Weinstein, Acee, Jung, & Dearman, 2009), these 10 factors were assessed by the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, 2nd Edition (LASSI) (Weinstein & Palmer, 2002). I used mixed ANOVA and regression analyses to identify how accurate students were at the beginning of the semester, how accurate they were at the end of the semester, if this difference was significant, and if other factors – a student’s theory of intelligence, parental education level, family income, and ethnicity – were related to the accuracy of these self assessments. I was particularly interested in the extent to which the least strategic students became more accurate in their self-assessments. Overall, three key findings emerged from the current study: 1) Students’ initial self-assessments were inaccurate and, for the most part, students overestimated their actual strategic learning capabilities, 2) self-assessments are amenable to change and accuracy can improve within a learning frameworks course, even among the least strategic learners in this sample, and 3) parental education level was associated with actual level of strategic learning for some factors at the beginning of the semester, but by the end of the semester, it was no longer a significant predictor. The relationship between the accuracy of student’s self assessments and selected personal demographic factors (income and ethnicity) and their theory of intelligence were mixed.