Browsing by Subject "Student engagement"
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Item Asynchronous online discussion and student engagement(2015-08) Selvidge, Jeremy Michael; Doty, Philip; Criner, Mary COnline coursework has become increasingly popular among institutions of higher education over the last twenty years. As of 2011, 6.7 million students were taking at least one course online--32% of all students enrolled in degree-granting post-secondary institutions (Allen and Seaman 2013). Additionally, over 70% of academic officers recognize online learning as a part of the long-term strategies of those institutions. With online enrollment continuing to grow, it is vital that we understand how students engage course content and interact with each other in the online classroom. This report examines asynchronous online discussion in an effort to increase this understanding. I first examine how student engagement is defined, measured, and related to learning. I then review relevant literature to evaluate ways in which asynchronous online discussion promotes and challenges engagement with course material. Finally, I explore how students' online discussions can be improved.Item Challenging male stereotypes : male student engagement in a co-curricular, interdisciplinary program(2014-05) Campbell, Lauren Christine; Saenz, Victor B.The gender gap in American college attendance has grown over four decades (see for example, Sax, 2008). The National Center for Educational Statistics noted that women received 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees conferred in 2009-2010. Furthermore, women engage in college opportunities inside and outside the classroom at greater rates than men. Engagement opportunities connect students to their college environment, support student learning, and contribute to student persistence (see for example, Astin, 1993). However, little research is available that focuses on which specific co-curricular opportunities men and women choose and any gender differences in engagement that exist within those programs (Sax, 2008). Many colleges offer interdisciplinary programs as a co-curricular student engagement option. Interdisciplinary studies allow students to study broad topics from many disciplinary perspectives and synthesize the various methods and theories for an often better understanding of the topic at hand (Newell, 1992). However, there is a paucity of research regarding gender differences in students who choose to pursue interdisciplinary programs. The purpose of the study was to investigate why male students choose or choose not to get involved in a specific interdisciplinary program at a large research institution in the southwestern United States. Moreover, the study examined the perceptions of administrators regarding male student involvement and their strategies to recruit male students. The study design was qualitative, and interviews of students and program administrators were the primary data source. The researcher employed two conceptual frameworks in the study: Terenzini and Reason's (2005) college experience model and Harris' (2010) model of the meanings college men make of masculinities. Key findings of the study indicated that there was a gender imbalance in student engagement in the interdisciplinary program. Furthermore, male students interested in the interdisciplinary program eschewed masculine norms both in their co-curricular pursuits and their academic interests. The study contributes to the field of student affairs by focusing on a research gap in male student engagement in interdisciplinary programs. By examining engagement experiences through the lens of male gender identity, the study provides rich data and offers strategies to student affairs practitioners.Item Classroom Observations of Instructional Practices and Technology Use by Elementary School Teachers and Students in an Ethnically-and Economically-Diverse School District(2012-10-19) Rollins, Kayla BrazielThe purpose of this study was to observe pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade public school classrooms to examine differences among instructional practices and technology use by teachers, students and the overall classroom. The current study differed from and built upon previous classroom observational research in a number of major ways. First, the observational data examined both student and teacher technology use and the availability of technology in the classroom. Second, authentic classroom behaviors were examined in relation to technology use; specifically, behaviors related to the impact of technology use on student engagement as well as differences among technology use in classrooms and differences by student socio-economic status. Finally, unlike previous studies, this study focused specifically on pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms from the same large public school district that was diverse by both socio-economic status (SES) and by student ethnicity. Overall, the results of this study suggest that technology has not been adequately implemented into the observed classrooms. Technology was available but was not used to a great extent. When technology was implemented, teachers were primarily observed using it to present material and students were observed using it almost exclusively for basic skills activities. This low-level of technology integration occurred in elementary schools of a high performing school district which had a technology plan in place, a low student to computer ratio, and 100 percent of the classrooms had Internet access. Furthermore, only 15 percent of teachers were observed integrating technology to a great extent; however, students in these classrooms were observed on task significantly more frequently than students in classrooms where technology was observed less or not at all. On the other hand, students were observed off task significantly more in classrooms where either no technology integration was observed or where it was only observed a moderate amount. These findings support and build upon previous observational studies. There is still a need, however, for strong, empirical research to be conducted to further examine the use of technology in elementary classrooms.Item Combining systems thinking, model-based reasoning, and project-based learning to advance student agency, increase student engagement and understanding, and provide an authentic and accurate method of assessing student competencies in a high school aquatic science course(2013-08) Ryan, Douglas Wayne; Stroup, Walter M.; Petrosino, Anthony JScience elective courses for high school seniors provide an opportunity to engage students in rigorous, relevant instruction that requires students to employ a broad range of science knowledge and skills from previous courses toward real world problems with relevance to students’ current and future life experiences. The goal of this work is to provide teachers of high school science courses with a methodology for the introduction of strong STEM components into traditional science courses, particularly model eliciting activities, system dynamics, and engineering based design challenges. Employing these instructional methods in an aquatic science course produced an effective, engaging curriculum that increased students understanding of science content and provided students with the tools to analyze, evaluate and design solutions to real world problems. Teaching the concept of system dynamics early in the course gave students tools, including causal loop diagrams, to create useful models for analyzing interactions in complex systems. Student creation of such models proved an effective instructional method for teaching science content and the nature of scientific processes. Students displayed the ability to apply these techniques, once taught, to a diverse set of problems and expressed an intention to continue to use these skills both personally and professionally in the future. Having students create, analyze, and discuss their own models of complex systems provided the teacher with an effective method for both formative and summative assessment of student knowledge and comprehension. The models provided a more authentic and accurate evaluation of student knowledge and understanding than a written test or multiple choice response exam alone. Student use of software modeling tools, such as STELLA, can be added to these methods, providing students with the ability to add the concepts of rate and flow to their models.Item The effects of online collaborative learning activities on student perception of level of engagement(2006-12) Quiros, Ondrea Michelle; Resta, Paul E.As online learning becomes more popular, higher education is becoming more interested in this new medium of learning. However, attrition has become a developing problem for colleges and universities that offer online classes, as some students found it was difficult to stay engaged in their online courses. From the literature, it was hypothesized that instructional designs that incorporate collaborative activities will lead to higher perceived engagement levels than those that incorporate individualistic learning. An exploratory study used a self-report survey instrument to measure students' perception of level of engagement in six graduate-level online classes (n=66). Half of the courses in the study integrated formal collaborative activities as a significant component of the course and half represented learning environments characterized by whole group and individualistic learning. The results showed a significant positive relationship between classes that used collaborative activities and engagement levels. However, the coded responses of the participants showed that while classes that use such activities had higher levels of engagement, it is possible that this may be attributable to other factors external to the formal elements of collaboration in the course. Recommendations are offered for future research that may help identify the elements that contribute to engagement in online courses.Item Engaging African American male students in predominately white community colleges : the impact of teaching excellence(2011-12) Darville, Christopher John; Reddick, Richard, 1972-Although community colleges offer opportunities for diverse students to achieve their educational goals, African American males continue to rank at the bottom of most academic success measures such as semester-to-semester retention and degree completion. Research shows that factors associated with teaching excellence (how well a faculty member exhibits enthusiasm, clarity, preparation/organization, stimulation, and love of knowledge) should encourage student engagement. The following research questions are proposed for this study: 1. How do faculty discuss teaching excellence relative to the academic engagement of African American males? 2. How do African American male students discuss the importance of faculty members’ race in relationship to their academic engagement? 3. How, if at all, does the age of an African American male student impact his academic engagement? 4. How do first-generation and second-generation collegiate African American male college students differ, if at all, in academic engagement? To conduct this research, a mixed method paradigm will be used. A quantitative instrument will be utilized to identify highly engaged African American male students and those who teach them. Qualitative analysis will lead to discovery of how teaching excellence affects the engagement of the target population of students. This research will add to current literature by examining the impact of the criteria of teaching excellence on African American male students in predominately white community colleges.Item Engaging underprepared community college students : practices leading to increased outcomes(2011-05) Glaser, Erika; Roueche, John E.; Bumphus, Walter G.; Cantú, Norma; McClenney, Kay; Saenz, VictorIn order to close the achievement gaps between traditionally underserved groups and their peers, institutions of higher education must make developmental education a priority by implementing college-wide strategies inside and outside the classroom to help underprepared students succeed. Since community colleges offer educational opportunities to anyone seeking to further their education, and hence serve the majority of underprepared college students, it is difficult to overstate the importance of assessing and strengthening the quality of educational practices for developmental students at these institutions. Assessing the extent to which underprepared college students are actively engaged in meaningful educational experiences, and the relationship between engagement and student outcomes, will help college leaders and policymakers implement research proven engagement strategies to help a population of students that has been historically underserved attain academic success and reap the societal and economic benefits of higher education. Relationships between engagement and three critical outcomes for underprepared college students were investigated: developmental sequence completion, subsequent college-level course performance, and attainment. Similar to studies conducted on the four-year sector, the present study found similar effects of engagement on developmental students attending community colleges. While generally having a positive effect on outcomes, engagement has been proven to have compensatory effects for students which have been typically underserved including minority, nontraditional age, and first-generation students. The present study found that the impact of engagement varies according to student characteristics and level of developmental course need and subject area. Further, the study suggests that certain types of engagement can have greater influence on students which characteristically are least likely to earn a college degree.Item Online social networking : exploring the relationship between use of web-based social technologies and community college student engagement(2010-05) Mix, Kerry Keith; Roueche, John E.; Bumphus, Walter G.; Northcutt, Norvell W.; McClenney, Kay M.; Resta, Paul E.Over the last decade, community college researchers and practitioners increasingly have focused on student engagement as a cornerstone of a successful student success agenda. This study investigated community college student engagement using an ex post facto quantitative methodology. This study reports the results of the five special-focus survey items from 2009 CCSSE national administration and data collected from institutional Facebook pages. This study measured student engagement levels based on five constructs from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (Active and Collaborative Learning, Student-Faculty Interaction, Academic Challenge, Student Effort, and Support for Learners), including more than 170,000 survey respondents. Differences in engagement levels were explored in terms of student characteristics including gender, race/ethnicity, developmental status, weekly preparation, commute time, age (traditional/nontraditional), and enrollment status (full-time/part-time). The results of this study revealed the following: •An institutional Facebook page can provide both academic and non-academic information. An institutional Facebook page is a central location that students, parents, fans, and others can go to ask questions about the college, either general or specific. •Students are using social networking tools for academic purposes. •Students who took honors course(s) and students who commuted six hours or more per week were more likely to use social networking tools to communicate about coursework. •Students’ use of social networking tools for academic purposes is associated with an increase in student-level benchmark scores. A proportional relationship exists between use of SNT and engagement scores. In general, students who frequently used SNT for academic purposes achieved higher engagement scores. •However, a corollary is also true: Student Effort scores tend to be lower among students who use SNT for any purpose multiple times per day.Item The protective effect of social support on student engagement for high school students experiencing dating abuse(2011-12) Walker, Kimberly Marie; Sander, Janay Boswell; Tharinger, DeborahThe purpose of this study is to examine the role of social support as a moderator between dating abuse and student engagement. Informed by the positive youth development perspective and the stress-buffering model, this study will examine the effects of dating abuse victimization on student engagement and the buffering role of social support in that relationship. Specifically, this study will use self-report measures from a rural/semi-rural, high school sample and multiple regression analysis to determine the effect of dating abuse on student engagement. If a significant relationship is found between dating abuse and student engagement, this study will then use multiple regression analysis to determine the moderating effect of social support on the relationship between dating abuse and student engagement. Research on the protective effects of social support on student engagement is critical to the design and implementation of interventions which have the potential to significantly improve the health, mental health, social, and education outcomes for adolescents who have experienced dating abuse.Item Student engagement and the design of high-impact practices at community colleges(2013-05) Hatch, Deryl Keith; Vincent, Gregory J.; Saenz, Victor B.This study investigates the relationship of student engagement with the design of structured group learning experiences (SGLEs) implemented by increasing numbers of community colleges. Using data from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) and the Community College Institutional Survey (CCIS), I employ Vygotsky's activity systems theory as a framework for interpreting the results of hierarchical linear models where student engagement measures are outcome variables, and the several covariates selected in terms of SGLEs as a social activity system. The results provide evidence that, among 24 different curricular elements of SGLEs, engagement is positively related to only a few of them, in particular co-curricular and community activities (campus or community service project(s), participation in campus activities/events outside the classroom, and service learning). There was limited evidence that engagement is related to duration and intensity of the programs; instead the evidence suggests that the people involved, both the personnel that teach and facilitate the programs, and the characteristics of the student participants, matter most to engagement. Even as this study provides the first views of the contours of student engagement within high-impact practices on a national scale, it also suggests that what may be important for engagement is that the programs bring people together for a purposeful experience at all. The results suggest the need for increased attention to co-curricular and community activities and professional development by practitioners; and for research, they propose hypotheses for further research such as the relative import of participation vis-à-vis program design, and they suggest new conceptual approaches to the study of high-impact practices generally.Item Student engagement in community college online education programs : an exploration of six constructs with implications for practice(2010-05) Fisher, Karla Ann; Roueche, John E.; Bumphus, Walter G.; McClenney, Kay; Northcutt, Norvell; Resta, Paul E.Improving student outcomes in community college online education requires understanding how institutional practices and student characteristics affect levels of student engagement in online courses. This study investigated community college online student engagement using an ex post facto quantitative methodology, reporting the results of an online survey administered to students enrolled in online courses at four community colleges and one statewide community college online consortium in the fall 2009 academic term. Online engagement levels were measured based on five constructs from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (Active and Collaborative Learning, Student-Faculty Interaction, Academic Challenge, Student Effort, and Support for Learners) and a sixth construct from the literature (Presence). The study measured the engagement levels of 906 survey respondents taking classes exclusively online compared with 1,179 survey respondents taking classes both online and on-campus. Differences in engagement levels also were explored in terms of student characteristics including gender, race/ethnicity, age (traditional/nontraditional), enrollment status; experience in online classes, and veteran status. The results of this study revealed the following: Community college online students are less engaged than students taking courses both online and on campus.Enrollment status is a strong predictor of online student engagement; online students enrolled part-time are substantially less engaged than online students enrolled full-time. Experience with online learning is another strong predictor of engagement; as students gain experience in online courses, they become more engaged online learners. Student demographics appear to play less of a role in student engagement online than on campus. Although measurably less engaged, online students scored high on Student Effort, suggesting respondents found courses taught exclusively online required substantial individual effort. Online students are isolated relative to other students and faculty, and are unlikely to reach out to make connections within the college community without assistance. Based on their distinctive experiences and characteristics, online students should be tracked as a unique cohort within community college student populations. This study concludes with recommendations for further research and strategies that community colleges could implement to increase online student engagement, retention, and ultimately success.Item The Development of the Campus Community Index: Calling Campus Home or Calling It QuitsDavila, Gloria Lizette