Student Learning: Improving Practice
Christopher Boyle, PhD (Editor)
1
Acknowledgements
The people whom we meet and the people whom we learn from influence us. This
book acknowledges both the student and the lecturer/teacher, as the fusion of interest
and discussion creates thinking, which fosters the development of a cerebral
environment, thus benefiting society.
The Editor would like to acknowledge the generous editorial and proofing support
from Ange Jarman, Jake Kraska, Shane Costello, Tony Mowbray, Sarah Rostron,
Amira Bosjnak, Linda Varcoe, Joe Anderson, and Jessica Grembecki.
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Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction - Improving Learning and participation in the 21st Century
Educational Environment - Christopher Boyle
Chapter One – I think that I think I know what I’m doing: Improving learning
through the use of meta-cognition - Fraser Lauchlan
Chapter Two – The Future Direction of Attribution Retraining for Students with
Learning Difficulties: A Review - Jemima Ellen Koles and Christopher Boyle
Chapter Three – The 21st Century Law Student: The Lecture Room or the
Mobile Phone? - Tom Serby
Chapter Four – The Creation and Implementation of Interactive Opportunities to
Promote Learning between Lectures - Jacqueline Carnegie
Chapter Five – A Design Framework for Enhancing On-Line Learning - Wendy
Fasso, Cecily Knight and Bruce Allen Knight
Chapter Six – A Study of Factors Influencing Success in an Introduction to
English Linguistics - Rebecca Babcock, Jack Nichols, Suzanne Rathbun, Julie
McCown, and Amanda McCain
Chapter Seven – Supporting Student Learning through Collaborative Assessment
Tasks - Rosario Hernández
Chapter Eight – Examining the assessment opportunities for cultural
connectedness for student learning: A sociocultural analysis - Val Klenowski,
Stephen Connolly and Robert Funnell
Chapter Nine – Student Pathways to Global Citizenship - Stephen Reysen and Iva
Katzarska-Miller
Chapter Ten – Action-Emotion Style, Test Anxiety And Resilience In Undergraduate
Students - Jesús de la Fuente, María Cardelle-Elawar, Paul Sander and David
Putwain,
Chapter Eleven - Critical thinking: Focal point for a culture of inquiry - David C.
Johnsen
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List of contributors
Editor
Chris Boyle, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the Faculty of Education at
Monash University, Australia. Chris has previously worked as a secondary school
teacher and as a school psychologist. His main research interests are in the area of
teacher perceptions of inclusion and students’ attributions for success and failure in
learning. He is currently Editor of the Australian Educational and Developmental
Psychologist and he has published widely in psychology and education with over 100
citations to his work since 2007. The Open University Press has published his latest
book,
What
Works
in
Inclusion.
Current
information
is
available
at:
http://education.monash.edu/profiles/cboyle
Contributors
Rebecca Babcock is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas of the
Permian Basin, USA. Her research interests include writing centers, disability, and
metaresearch. Her latest book is Tell Me How it Reads: Tutoring Writing with Deaf
and Hearing Students in the Writing Center, published by Gallaudet University Press.
María Cardelle-Elawar is an Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at Mary
Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, USA. She has active research
interests with recent publications in measuring teacher regulatory process, and
students’ learning processes.
Jacqueline Carnegie, Ph.D., M.Ed. is an Associate Professor with the Faculty of
Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Canada. When not lecturing, she develops
online learning and self-testing tools for undergraduate students studying anatomy,
physiology and pathophysiology. She was recently awarded a University of Ottawa
Chair in Teaching.
4
Stephen Connolly Ph.D., is a teacher and researcher with the Faculty of Education
Queensland University of Technology. His research interests include assessment
practices and sociology in education. Stephen was a research team member with a
major Australian Research Council funded project to develop new modes of
assessment of the capacities, skills and knowledge of at-risk adolescents who have left
formal schooling. He has published in the fields of evaluation and assessment and
sociology of education.
Wendy Fasso has gained a Masters degree in Education Technology and has spent
four years as an education technology expert and professional development facilitator
in schools across Queensland, Australia. She has a particular interest in digital
pedagogy and the transformation of learning with technology. Wendy is a lecturer in
education at Central Queensland University, Bundaberg.
Jesús de la Fuente is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Departament of
Psychology at the University of Almería, Spain. He is Editor-in-chief of the
Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology. His research interests are
focused on studying the processes of teaching and learning in the university, and
personal self-regulation and motivational-affective process of learning.
Robert Funnell is a sociologist of education at Griffith University, Queensland,
Australia with an interest in biography and life transitions in rural and urban
economies.
Dr. Rosario Hernández lectures in Spanish at University College Dublin, where she
is also a Fellow in Teaching and Academic Development. Her research interests
include second language learning, assessment of student learning, and teaching
methodologies. She regularly publishes in international journals and books, and
presents her work at international conferences.
Dr. David Johnsen received his Doctorate in Dental Science from the University of
Michigan, 1970, his MS Pediatric Dentistry, University of Iowa, 1973, and has been
the Dean of Dentistry, University of Iowa, since 1995. His Research focuses across
the following areas: tooth innervation indicating capacity to transmit pain impulses;
5
early childhood caries/caries patterns in preschoolers. David was the American
Dental Education Association President from 2002-03, and is currently Dental and
Craniofacial Research Council Member (NIH) (2010-).
Jemima Koles is a Psychologist specialising in the fields of educational and
developmental psychology. She is currently teaching on the undergraduate program at
Monash University in the areas of developmental, biological, social, and cognitive
psychology. Her research and practice interests include learning difficulties,
mindfulness, and positive self-esteem.
Iva Katzarska-Miller is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Transylvania
University in Lexington, Kentucky. She teaches classes related to cultural
psychology, social justice, and diversity. Her research interests focus on selfstereotyping, interpersonal relationships, and global citizenship.
Val Klenowski is a Professor of Education at the Queensland University of
Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She has research interests in curriculum and
assessment reform and development, evaluation, assessment and learning and social
justice issues. Recent research interests include teacher judgement, social moderation
in the context of standards-driven reform, culture responsive assessment and
pedagogy and the use of digital portfolios. Val has published in the fields of
assessment and learning, curriculum and evaluation.
Dr. Cecily Knight is Associate Dean (Teaching & Learning) at James Cook
University, Australia. She has more than 25 years experience in the field of education
and a keen interest in blended learning and pedagogies for using new technologies in
higher education.
Bruce Allen Knight is Professor of Education at Central Queensland University,
Australia. His current research interests are in learning design and pedagogy. He has
more than 200 publications and in 2006 was honoured with a Fellowship of the
International Academy of Research in Learning Disabilities.
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Fraser Lauchlan, PhD, is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in
Scotland and a registered educational psychologist. He is the owner of his own
consultancy business Fraser Lauchlan Associates (www.fraserlauchlan.com). He has
published extensively in many areas of educational psychology. His latest book is
entitled Improving Learning Through Dynamic Assessment, published by Jessica
Kingsley Publishers.
Amanda McCain is a doctoral student at Texas A&M University-Commerce whose
research focus is Composition and New Media Studies. Her dissertation will look the
theoretical application of flow and video games as text in First Year Composition
courses. She completed her MA in English at the University of Texas-Permian Basin.
Julie McCown is a Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the
University of Texas at Arlington. Her research interests include Early American
Literature, Animal Studies, and Digital Humanities. McCown received her M.A. in
English from the University of Texas at the Permian Basin in 2011.
Jack Nichols is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and has spent most of his
working life in the oil fields of West Texas. He earned his bachelor’s degree in
psychology from The University of Texas of the Permian Basin and has a master’s
degree pending at that same university.
David Putwain is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Edge Hill University, UK. He is
hoping to shed new light on the effect of examination-related stress on pupils and
provide some hard evidence on a topic so far shaped predominantly by speculation
and guesswork. He worked for several years for one of the English awarding boards at
A and AS-Level and started to wonder about the psychological factors that impact on
performance.
Suzanne Rathbun is a lecturer in Psychology and the data analyst for the Critical
Thinking Initiative at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Her research
interests are in relation to development of adolescents in our changing world. She has
presented at both regional and international conferences.
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Stephen Reysen is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Texas A&M UniversityCommerce. He teaches classes related to social psychology, intergroup relations, and
multicultural diversity. His research interests include topics related to personal (e.g.,
threats to interpersonal public identity) and social identity (e.g., global citizenship).
Paul Sander is a Principal Lecturer in psychology at the University of Wales Institute
Cardiff in the UK. He has active research interests and recent publications in
measuring students’ academic confidence, exploring different approaches to studying
between male and female students. He is also an academic with dyslexia.
Tom Serby qualified as a solicitor in England in 1995 and practised law in the City of
London becoming a Solicitor Advocate with rights of audience in all higher courts in
2001; the same year as he joined Exeter University as a law lecturer. Since 2007,
Tom has taught at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge where he lectures in
business and employment law at undergraduate and Masters level. His research
specialisms include learning and teaching and sports law and he has presented various
conference papers including at the SLSA conference and has been published in
various academic journals including the Liverpool Law Review and the International
Sports Law Review.
8
INTRODUCTION –
Improving Learning and participation in the 21st Century Educational
Environment
Christopher Boyle
Monash University, Australia
This book is attempting to bring to the reader an eclectic group of examples of
educational practise, which will assist in improving the knowledge of the reader.
Many respected academics express their skills and expertise in the various projects,
which promote good teaching practice. If you are a practitioner and reading this book
then you are already interested in adapting your style and open to suggestions for
improvement, as we all should be in the role that we are in. No book is complete or
can be regarded as the authority on any subject and this one does not profess to be.
Continual improvement in our methods is a laudable goal in the academic profession
and this book will afford the reader some excellent insights and discussion points but
what aspects are regarded as useful, will depend on the individual taste of each reader.
It would be an understatement to suggest that education is as important as it is
universally desirable and that most governments and international organisations
continually strive to provide access to education whether it be primary, secondary or
tertiary in type. An educated population adds value to the country whether in social
benefits or that of a more skilled workforce. If we agree that the promotion of widely
accessible education is key to a functioning state then the quality of that education
system is paramount. The key aspect to successful education is that of being free from
government interference and that aside, the main ingredient is that of the quality of
the instruction, whether in the school or university system.
Lecturing and teaching are both art forms, at least if it is done well, and these have to
be cultivated and honed. As examples, the best engineers or psychologists do not
necessarily make the best lecturers and this is the same for all professions.
Maximising the quality and strength of the human component and the interaction
between student and lecturer is paramount if learning is to be existent in places of
learning. A cartoon that this chapter author saw in a higher education publication a
number of years ago had the scenario where a person was telling his friend that he had
9
taught his dog to speak and the friend remarked at how wonderful this was and what a
great teacher he must be. He asked for this to be shown to him but the dog owner said
‘I didn’t say that he could speak but only that I taught him to do it’. Many people can
teach but whether they do it effectively and whether their students learn is a moot
point. This book attempts to provide the reader with strategies and programs that have
been successful in very diverse teaching environments around the world. Not every
chapter will be applicable to every reader but there are many aspects, which allow the
successful instructor to advance their facilitation skills and hopefully improve their
practise and thus learning and participation in the 21st century.
This publication contains eleven exciting and innovative chapters, which cover
education both in the school and that of the tertiary sector. The scope is vast and the
writing lively, with each chapter bringing a particular pedagogical perspective which
the reader should find enlightening and refreshing.
The first two chapters in the book have a focus on school education, however the
content is equally attributable to other education sectors. In Chapter One, ‘I think
that I think I know what I’m doing: Improving learning through the use of metacognition’, Lauchlan focuses on providing the reader with an overview of
metacognitive processes in an educational setting. He discusses practical methods for
educational professionals to motivate and inspire their students through cognitive
techniques. Lauchlan uses straightforward examples, which provide a valuable
contribution to improving learning processes in student-teacher interaction. In
Chapter Two, ‘The future direction of attribution retraining for students with
learning difficulties: A review’, Knowles and Boyle introduce to the reader the
importance of understanding the role of students’ attributions for success or failure in
learning and how their motivation to complete future work is affected as a result.
Solutions are presented as to how better to understand and alter current teaching
practise to improve students’ ability to achieve in school but also to recognize their
own inherent ability to work positively.
Chapter Three begins the chapters, which focuses specifically on online technology.
Serby starts this section with the chapter entitled, ‘The 21st Century Law Student:
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The Lecture Room or the Mobile Phone?’ which discussed the findings of a
research study that attempted to move from face-to-face teaching to that of blended
learning with some students receiving their teaching input by podcast. Serby’s
findings provide useful points for how teaching on university courses may evolve in
future years. In Chapter Four, ‘The creation and implementation of interactive
opportunities to promote learning between lectures’, Carnegie puts forward
various technologically influenced strategies which are designed to maintain a link
between lecturers and students outside of the teaching room. Practical examples are
used from Carnegie’s own research work which highlight adaptable solutions which
the reader may find some benefit in adopting in their own respective teaching
environments. Chapter Five completes the section on technology with Fasso and
colleagues whose chapter entitled ‘A design framework for enhancing on-line
learning’ discuss various pedagogical approaches, which can be influenced and
complemented by using technology in learning. Babcock and colleagues in Chapter
Six, ‘A study of factors influencing success in an introduction to English
linguistics’, emphasize the complexities in having students enrol in this subject with
below average reading ability. Findings from their study are discussed including
methods to assist students whose reading ability is below the requirements for the
course. In Chapter Seven entitled, ‘Supporting student learning through
collaborative assessment tasks’, Hernández puts forward the case for students to be
more involved in collaborative learning and stresses the potential benefits of peer
assessment as a key tool in pedagogical techniques such as Problem Based Learning.
In Chapter Eight Klenowski and colleagues write on the subject of ‘Examining the
assessment opportunities for cultural connectedness for student learning: A
sociocultural analysis’ from an Australian perspective. They put forward methods
for teachers working in schools to consider more of the cultural aspects of the
students that they are teaching and this is especially so in respect of indigenous
students in Australia who tend me marginalised in many aspects of Australian
schooling society. Continuing the theme of social connectedness, Reysen and
colleagues consider in Chapter Nine ‘Student Pathways to Global Citizenship’,
where a review of the current literature is discussed in relation to what exactly the
term ‘global citizenship’ means and how this can influence the current teachings in
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university. Practical suggestions are offered so as to ensure that the student-lecturer
educational interactions are improved and thus made more effective.
In the penultimate chapter of the book, de la Fuente and colleagues discuss, in
Chapter Ten, ‘Action-emotion style, test anxiety and resilience in undergraduate
students’ where a study is reported which illustrates the certain characteristics which
are inherent in an undergraduate university population. Links are made between how
students react in stressful situations and how they attribute success or failure in
dealing with certain situations. The authors put forward suggestions for how
resilience can be improved and strengthened in this university population. In Chapter
Eleven, the final chapter, Johnsen considers ‘Critical thinking: Focal point for a
culture of inquiry’, as an essential component in the teaching of university students.
The author suggests that critical thinking is an essential component of university
teaching, which does not have the same influence as in previous years and who can
disagree. Johnsen is an advocate for universities promoting ‘thinking’ in their courses
and examples from practise are illustrated which demonstrate the successful building
of a culture of inquiry amongst the students.
Conclusion
This book attempts to bring together a very diverse group of academics from various
subject disciplines, university and schools, and it is international in context. This
publication puts forward various suggestions and tangible examples of how pedagogy
can be enhanced and how technology can be used to further improve student
outcomes. Whether this book manages to meet these to the satisfaction of the reader
will not be something that the author can judge. It is hoped that the following chapters
will provide some suggestions for different teaching styles, which may have worked
in a university before, and with cultural and subject adaptations these can be used to
improve your pedagogical approach. The chapters that you will read are evidence
based and have been written by esteemed academics in their field thus illustrating
chapters of quality that I hope you will enjoy and ultimately benefit from their
content.
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Chapter 1
I think that I think I know what I’m doing: Improving learning through the use
of meta-cognition
Fraser Lauchlan
University of Strathclyde, UK
Abstract
The concept of metacognition and the use of meta-cognitive strategies is an approach
to learning that has been around for many decades, however, the extent to which it has
been adopted widely in education could be questioned. This chapter will provide
some background to metacognition, describing the process in detail and outlining
research studies that have demonstrated the effectiveness of metacognition in a range
of different educational settings. The chapter will also offer some practical examples
of how to implement metacognition in the classroom that will hopefully help students
and teachers to profit from this valuable technique.
Introduction – Developmental background
What is metacognition? A simple definition that is often seen in introductory
textbooks for psychology students and teachers is the following, “metacognition is the
ability to think about one’s own thought processes” (Cole & Cole, 2001, p.495). But
what does this mean in practice? And how can this be valuable in learning? It is the
purpose of this chapter to answer these questions and to offer some useful, practical
strategies that will help improve the metacognition of students in various education
settings and hence their ability to learn.
If I were to ask you to remember and then recall a list of 20 items that are
commonly found in a shopping list, and then asked you afterwards how you
approached such a task, your answer would give me an idea of your level of
metacognitive skill. You may have considered different strategies (for example,
categorising the items appropriately, imagining pictures of them, or thinking about
where they are found in your local supermarket) and then decided to stick to one; or
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you maybe decided to use a combination of these. Your awareness of how you
approached the task, and the strategies you considered and then adopted, represent the
metacognitive process you would have gone through. It is generally accepted in the
literature that metacognition is a fundamental cognitive process that helps promote the
cognitive development of children, young people and adults. As demonstrated in the
anecdote above, metacognition can help us to understand how difficult a problem may
be and will help us to decide upon an appropriate strategy in order to solve it. In
addition, metacognitive strategies might help us to reflect on what we have done and,
if necessary, make appropriate corrections if we have made mistakes.
Metacognition is linked to an information-processing perspective, in other words,
it can relate to the different ways in which people take on board information, use this
information and then store it (Siegler, 1991). As children mature, their ability to
process information improves and becomes more sophisticated, which, in turn, helps
them to problem-solve more efficiently. Children’s ability to process information can
be influenced by, the speed of processing (scanning, recognising and comparing),
their memory (including ‘chunking’, i.e. logically grouping responses or items into
one’s memory and remembering the groups rather than the individual items), and their
level of concentration. All of these skills can be influenced by the child’s ability to
use metacognition, for example, the use of strategies such as planning, monitoring and
revising. Young children are not able to recognise, for example, when they make an
error, whereas older children, as their metacognitive processes improve, are able to
know when they do not understand something, or indeed, if they have made an error
(Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters & Afflerbach, 2006).
The increase in the level of sophistication of a child’s metacognition often reflects
their understanding of a theory of mind, which is their knowledge and beliefs about
the mental states and motives of others, which help them to explain and predict their
behaviour. A classic theory of mind task, and widely adopted in research into the
concept is the Sally-Anne problem (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985; Doody et al., 1998,
Frith, 1989). The Sally-Anne problem is a story involving two children – Sally and
Anne – who are playing together with a ball and two different coloured boxes: one red
and one green (for example). After they have played for a while, Sally has to go out
so she decides to place the ball in the red box. While she is out, Anne takes the ball
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from the red box and after playing for a while then places the ball in the green box.
Sally returns and wants to play with the ball. The following question is then asked to
the children, “where do you think Sally will look for her ball? In the red box or in the
green box?” The child has to understand the mental state of Sally and decide that she
would look for the ball in the red box and ignore the information that is known to
them (i.e. that Anne placed the ball in the green box). The story can be difficult for
pre-school children to follow, therefore it is accompanied by real-life dolls and boxes,
and questions are asked throughout to ensure that the child is following the sequence
of events, however, in the main, children as young as 4 and 5 years old should be able
to answer the question correctly. The ability to selectively attend to the information
that is important to the context, while ignoring the irrelevant information, is the
beginning stages of children’s theory of mind and reflects an important stage of
metacognitive development.
What are some of the processes involved in metacognition?
As stated above, the main processes involved in metacognition are planning,
monitoring, and evaluating (or reviewing). However, a significant aspect of
metacognition is metamemory, which refers to the ability to understand memory as a
process and be aware of one’s own memory, both in its strengths and in its limitations
(Veenman et al., 2006). In other words, it might refer to a person’s ability to assess
what demands are being placed on their memory for different tasks and to develop
suitable strategies as a result (Bukatko & Daehler 2001). It also includes the skill of
monitoring one’s own memory competencies and making judgements as to how to
allocate cognitive resources (“Have I remembered everything here?” “How can I
make sure that I will remember it all?” “Do I need to reflect on the information a little
more?”). It is the development of these skills regarding memory that accounts for the
metacognitive process of metamemory.
A metacogntive skill that is related to the monitoring process is self-regulation
(Azevedo, 2008), which is described as “the capacity to monitor and direct one’s
activities to achieve certain goals or meet the demands imposed by others” (Bukatko
& Daehler, 2001, p.423). The opposite of self-regulation is impulsivity, an aspect of
behaviour that is often seen in children with learning problems, and in young children.
Self-regulation means that children will assume greater responsibility for their
15
learning without having to constantly ask their teacher or parent for help. It is the
move from dependent learner to independent learner that is a key stage in the
development of children and their capacity to use metacognitive strategies. The role
of language during self-regulation has been highlighted as especially significant
(Vygotsky, 1962). Verbalising (or speaking out loud what one is doing), while
carrying out a complex task, is something that can help one to reflect and self-correct,
and can be an important metacognitive skill to teach children. The use of the
metacognitive strategy of problem verbalisation can have a significant positive impact
on childrens’ learning (Bannert & Mengelkamp, 2008; Bethge, Carlson & Weidl,
1982; Elliott, Lauchlan & Stringer, 1996; Landor, Lauchlan, Carrigan & Kennedy,
2007; Lauchlan, Carrigan & Daly, 2007); indeed even as adults we will often use
problem verbalisation to help us when doing something new or complex.
Verbalisation encourages monitoring and reflection and helps to draw attention to the
key features of a task.
Metalinguistic awareness refers to the ability to use knowledge about language.
Is a sentence grammatically correct? What are the pragmatic qualities required when
communicating? How can I make myself understood clearly? These are questions that
would constitute metalinguistic awareness. Research indicates that children do not
begin to think about these kinds of questions until around the early school years
(Bukatko & Daehler, 2001). It is linked to children’s awareness of their use of
language, which clearly reflects another metacognitive skill and one that is essential
to learning. Metalinguistic awareness can be demonstrated through the use of jokes or
riddles, where the child begins to “play” with their language, perhaps creating funny
words or intentionally mislabelling objects (Bukatko & Daehler, 2001).
Children’s understanding of metaphor and figurative language reflects their increasing
metalinguistic knowledge. It is generally felt that a child’s increase in metalinguistic
knowledge reflects the improvements that have been made in their thinking skills in
general (Bukatko & Daehler, 2001). Research has indicated that metalinguistic
awareness is generally higher in bilingual and multilingual children compared to
monolinguals (Bialystok, Majumder, & Martin, 2003; Bialystok, Peets & Moreno,
2012; Lauchlan, Parisi & Fadda, 2012).
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Metacognition can also be used to help reading comprehension, sometimes referred
to as metacomprehension. In this context, metacomprehension regards how much
knowledge a child has of his/her own reading process, how much they are aware of
their own failure to understand something and the resultant ability to come up with
appropriate strategies (Currie, 1999). When a child is reading, or indeed when an
adult is reading, it is important that they are reviewing what they are reading (or selfmonitoring) and making judgements about whether or not they are continuing to
understand the passage. If the individual decides that he/she does not understand the
text, then it is important that they take appropriate steps to remedy the situation (e.g.
stopping to pause and reflect, looking for clarification from a drawing or picture,
using the context to predict what was written or even re-reading the last sentence or
two). Of course, most readers will do these things without really noticing it, however,
some children do need to be specifically taught how to do this. Teaching
metacognitive skills for reading comprehension can be challenging and will largely
depend upon the skills of the teacher (Currie, 1999), who must interact with the child,
discussing the problem-solving (metacognitive) strategies in a way that will help the
child to develop these skills independently. The use of mediated learning (Vygotsky,
1978; Feuerstein, Feuerstein, Rand & Falik, 2002) provides a useful framework in
which this can be done.
Mediated learning was first discussed by Vygotsky (1978) but extended and
elaborated upon by the work of Reuven Feuerstein and colleagues, who developed the
theory of mediated learning experience (Feuerstein et al., 1979; 1988; 2002).
Essentially, mediated learning is an approach to teaching that involves carefully
tailored intervention by a ‘mediator’ in a way that encourages a process in the child or
student from being ‘other-regulated’ to being ‘self-regulated’. In other words, the
responsibility for learning should be gradually transferred from the ‘mediator’ to the
individual learner. This can be done by gradually withdrawing the level of support so
that the student progressively assumes greater responsibility for their own learning,
adopting the strategies that have been ‘mediated’ to them. It is a process that is often
referred to as ‘scaffolding’ (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976). For a full discussion of the
process of mediation and the theory of mediated learning experience, the reader is
referred to Feuerstein et al. (2002).
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Practical applications of metacognition
Various phrases are used to describe metacognition in practice, such as ‘planning
to make a plan’, ‘stopping and checking’ and ‘knowing when, what and how to
remember’ (Ashman & Conway, 1997, p.51). It is the purpose of this section to
review some of the research that has been undertaken on metacognition in various
educational settings and also to provide the reader with some practical applications of
metacognitive strategies in order to understand how one can try to improve this
important skill in students’ learning.
Research has demonstrated the value in promoting metacognition in various
educational settings. For example, in a study investigating the use of metacognitive
strategies in a chemistry classroom, Thomas & McRobbie (2001) found that students
who were previously non-metacognitive in their thinking were able to be trained in
how to think more in a metacognitive way, including showing revision of their
learning processes. The positive relationship between the use of metacognition, study
strategies and academic achievement has been demonstrated by recent research with
first year university students (Vrugt & Oort, 2008), and it can be hypothesised that
similar results would be obtained with younger students. The influence of
metacognition in the development of critical thinking skills in university students has
been established in a study involving 240 college students (Magno, 2010).
McCormick (2003) offers an excellent review of the literature on the use of
metacognition in the classroom and in particular discusses specific intervention
studies that have facilitated the use of metacognition demonstrating positive results.
Research has also demonstrated the gains made through the use of metacognitive
strategies in children with learning disabilities (Wong, 1987), and in children with
specific learning problems in mathematics (Lucangeli et al., 1998). Pressley and
Gaskins (2006) outlined their research study, which revealed the success of a
metacognitive intervention programme across a whole school for students who had
problems with reading proficiency.
It is the purpose of the remainder of this chapter to outline some ideas that can be
tried with individual students or at a whole-class level. The ideas and strategies
presented are a culmination of more than 15 years research and practice undertaken
by the author in collaboration with colleagues who were (and in some cases, still are)
18
practising educational psychologists (Elliott et al., 1996; Landor et al., 2007;
Lauchlan, 1999; 2001; Lauchlan & Carrigan, 2013; Lauchlan et al., 2007; Lauchlan &
Elliott, 1997; 2001; Stringer, Elliott & Lauchlan, 1997).
Metacognitive questions can be given to students in order to encourage them to ask
these questions to themselves when performing a range of different tasks. The
questions can be divided into three categories: 1) before starting a task, 2) during the
completion of a task, and 3) after completing a task.
1. Before starting a task

It is important that a student asks some essential metacognitive questions
before embarking on a task as it is likely that their answers will help them to
undertake the task more efficiently. For example, the student should ask: What
do I have to do here? Where will I start? After I start, what will I do next?

Further questions are required of the student regarding the use of previous
knowledge that may help them in the current task, for example, How is this
similar to something I already know/have done? What do I know about this
already? Will anything I’ve learned before help me with this task?

The requirements of the task should be considered, for example: do I
understand what I need to do here? How much time will I need? Do I know
where to get information that will help me? What do I expect to find out?

Finally, the use of specific strategies should be contemplated before starting:
What strategies can I use to complete this task? Is there another way I could
do this?
2. During the task

While undertaking the task, the student should try to pay attention to their own
thinking using process questions: Am I on the right track? How can I spot a
mistake if I make one? Does this remind me of previous work that I’ve done?
If so, what helped me in that situation?

Self-regulation is important and the student may ask themselves the following
questions to ensure that they are not being impulsive during the task: Am I
being careful to stop and think about it? Am I taking my time? Am I reflecting
enough?
19

Problem-verbalisation can help the student specifically: they should be
encouraged to talk their way through the task or problem (but in a way that
does not disturb others if working in a group/class context). This will help
them to spot errors in their thinking and thus self-correct.
3. After the task

The most basic metacognitive strategy for students to learn is checking their
answer. Thus, they can be encouraged to ask the following, Is my answer
correct? Do I need to change it? Do I need to add more?

Other supplementary questions are just as important in terms of consolidating
the learning process and encouraging self-reflection that will help with future
tasks, Did I understand everything? Do I need to ask a question? What have I
learned by doing this task? How could I do this task better next time?

The student may also want to consider what they liked and disliked about the
task, or whether they found it easy or difficult as this can also help with the
reflection and consolidation process, thus, What did I like and dislike about
the task? What did I find easy/difficult?
General classroom activities to encourage the use of metacognition
The metacognitive questions provided above are discussed in the context of
helping individual students. However, they can also be used at a whole-class level,
perhaps displaying them on a poster in the classroom where all children can read them
and be reminded to use them. In this way the teacher can incorporate metacognitive
questions into their general teaching routine. Similarly, teachers can encourage the
class to check their answers before submitting a piece of work, perhaps incorporating
“Checking Time” into the classroom routine. Again, this can be done whole-class, or
it could be that children have a set time every day or week where they gather in
groups to share what they have done. This could be scheduled after students have
completed their planned activities.
Another metacognitive strategy that could be tried is to include a set time to reflect
on what the children have learned in class, perhaps at the end of the school day.
Whole-class discussion can revolve around the question: “What is something new you
have learned today?” with every student encouraged to provide a response. This can
20
be done verbally, where each child answers, or alternatively they can be asked to
write it down. Another idea is to use “traffic lights” cards where the children would
indicate whether they have had a good (green), bad (red), or indifferent day (amber).
With younger students or those with difficulties with learning this can also be done
through the use of cards with ‘smiley faces’ (good day = happy face, bad day = sad
face, indifferent day = straight face).
With older students, the use of a “Reflective Diary” can be a helpful metacognitive
strategy to encourage, where the students are asked each day to write their reflections
on what they have done in school, and what they have learned. Questions such as:
“What did I learn today at school?” or “What did I enjoy today?” can be adapted
according to a child’s age and stage. For example, more complex supplementary
questions could be asked, e.g. “How will what I learned today help me in the future?”,
or “How does what I have learned today relate to real-life contexts?” Another option,
if the child is able and wishes to do so, is to complete the Reflective Diary through the
use of drawings as a way to communicate their thoughts and feelings about each day.
A key aspect of self-regulation is helping students to learn how to set goals
independently through planning. Students should be encouraged to set goals related to
what they have to study. For younger children, it may be necessary to provide more
assistance in this process. Goal setting can involve many things, but may include
completing a series of practice questions each day to prepare for a quiz or studying
five vocabulary words per night for a test at the end of the week. Children may need
help to understand the importance of planning and goal setting. Developing a plan of
attack to achieve their goals is necessary, and will help children set reasonable goals
within a specific time frame.
Examples of planning include completing a study diary or completing parts of a
large project for an hour every other day. At this point, students should ask
themselves “what is my goal (what do I want to do) and by when?” Planning can be
both long term and short term, but ideally, should be done by the student, thereby
building independent planning skills; the point of this is to help students to set goals
and plan on their own.
21
Teachers may wish to make planning a regular part of the school day. In other
words, planning should be a regular classroom activity so students will automatically
begin to think about what they want to do and how to carry it out. It can be useful if
the planning is scheduled at the same time each day: it can be done in small groups,
pairs or individually.
With older students, especially with regard to creative project work, they can be
encouraged to elaborate their plans in order to extend their ideas. Asking students to
give details such as where they want to work, what materials they intend to use, the
sequence of their activities and the outcomes they expect to achieve, can do this.
As students enter into the habit of writing down and recording their plans, they
will begin to get the message that their ideas are valuable. With older children, it is
important to encourage them to begin writing down their ideas by themselves.
Documentation such as writing, drawing and photography helps children become
more conscious of the process and value of planning. They are likely to think through
and elaborate on their ideas as they formally record them.
What parents can do to encourage the use of metacognitive strategies
Parents can also help with the process of developing metacognitive strategies in
their children. They can encourage their child to use lists for planning and
remembering. For example, they can ask the child to design a checklist of five things
they need to do in the morning before going to school. Checklists such as these can be
useful planning tools, which will help with children’s organisational skills and
responsibility for their own learning. Other checklist ideas include planning a bedtime
routine or homework routine.
Before children begin homework, parents can ask them to think about and estimate
how long it should take and then check their estimates. This will encourage planning
ahead and organisation. Some children may enjoy the challenge of seeing if they can
‘beat the clock’, however, on a cautionary note, it is clearly important that they don’t
rush their work as a result. Agreement can be made that the time estimate is based on
making no errors. Rewards and treats can be used to make it more enjoyable.
22
Parents can ensure that they provide their child with a weekly planner or
homework diary to help with planning and organisation. These are time planning tools
that will help children get homework in on time and prioritise activities.
Parents can also encourage their child to set goals for the day, week, or month on a
regular basis. Helping children set goals is one tangible way of increasing their
planning skills. A practical task that can be given by parents to encourage their
planning skills is to ask them to plan a family events or outing, i.e. giving them the
sole responsibility of planning a family day out (e.g. where to go, how long it will
take, what you will need, and what time you will leave). This will encourage children
to look ahead by working out steps required to achieve goals.
Conclusions
The intention of this chapter is to outline the potential benefits that can be gained
by encouraging the use of metacognitive strategies by children in the classroom and at
home. An outline of the developmental background to metacognition was provided
and descriptions given about some of the main metacognitive processes that are
discussed in the literature. Research that has been undertaken on the use of
metacognition in specific educational settings has been discussed, and practical
applications have been provided detailing how teachers (and parents) can implement a
metacognitive approach in their classrooms. It is hoped that such strategies will
encourage the use of planning, reflection, self-regulation and monitoring by students
that, in turn, will help improve their learning.
Research detailing the use of metacognition in different educational settings has
shown that significant gains can be made in children’s learning. While some may
argue that there could be more done in promoting the use of metacognition, there is
little doubt that the application of such an approach is becoming increasingly more
widespread, if recent research evidence is anything to go by. However, there remains
much work to be done, as stated by Veenman et al. (2006), “Teachers are absolutely
willing to invest effort in the instruction of metacognition within their lessons, but
they need the ‘tools’ for implementing metacognition as an integral part of their
lessons, and for making students aware of their metacognitive activities and the utility
of those activities” (p.10). It is hoped that this chapter will provide some useful ideas
23
and strategies for students, teachers and parents alike to improve the use of
metacognition in their everyday learning contexts.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Donna Carrigan for the contribution she has made to some
of the ideas presented in this article.
Some of the material presented in this article has been reproduced by kind permission
of Jessica Kingsley Publishers, taken from Improving Learning Through Dynamic
Assessment: A Practical Classroom Resource that will be published in March 2013
and available from www.jkp.com. ISBN: 9781849053730
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28
Chapter 2
Future Direction of Attribution Retraining for Students with Learning
Difficulties: A Review
Jemima Ellen Koles
Monash University, Australia
Christopher Boyle
Monash University, Australia
Abstract
Is it possible to improve an individual’s ability without any direct practise of the
topic? Examining the way in which students think about learning and what motivates
them to engage in learning material is a fundamental step in the learning process.
Consideration has to be given to the effect that low self-esteem can have on the
motivation and interest of a child to learn (e.g., Moriarty, Douglas, Punch, & Hattie,
1995). Once a student encounters difficulties in a particular subject area they appear
to disengage with academic material on that topic (Kunnen & Steenbeek, 1999). If a
student holds the belief that they do not have the capability to achieve in a task, and
this belief is continually reinforced by frequent failures, then it is to be expected that
the student will reduce the amount of effort they apply to that topic and will reallocate
it to a task where positive gains are observed. For example, if a student with reading
difficulties concludes that their ability is the main reason limiting their progress in
reading, it is likely that they will disengage when reading is the area of study. This is
a mechanism to protect their self-esteem, and they will most likely re-direct their
focus to an area which does not threaten their self-esteem, such as social interaction.
This chapter provides a timely review of the literature on cognitive behavioural
approaches and how this can affect students' attributions for success and failure in
learning.
Key words: attributions; attribution retraining; student motivation; cognitive
behavioural; self-esteem
29
Introduction
Is it possible to improve an individual’s ability without any direct practice of
the topic? Examining the way in which students think about learning and what
motivates them to engage in learning material is a fundamental step in the learning
process. Consideration has to be given to the effect that low self-esteem can have on
the motivation and interest of a child to learn (e.g., Moriarty, et al., 1995). Once a
student encounters difficulties in a particular subject area they appear to disengage
with academic material on that topic (Kunnen & Steenbeek, 1999). If a student holds
the belief that they do not have the capability to achieve in a task, and this belief is
continually reinforced by frequent failures, then it is to be expected that the student
will reduce the amount of effort they apply to that topic and will reallocate it to a task
where positive gains are observed. For example, if a student with reading difficulties
concludes that their ability is the main reason limiting their progress in reading, it is
likely that they will disengage when reading is the area of study. This is a mechanism
to protect their self-esteem, and they will most likely re-direct their focus to an area,
which does not threaten their self-esteem, such as social interaction. This can be
beneficial for their development in some ways, as to not further impede their selfesteem, however are there alternative adaptive ways to assist students with difficulties
to continue engaging with the learning material while preserving self-esteem? This
chapter provides a timely review of the literature on cognitive behavioural approaches
and how this can affect students' attributions for success and failure in learning.
Student attributions are of particular concern for those struggling with learning
difficulties in literacy, given that much of the learning material and assessment
presented across academic domains requires reading and spelling for the
communication of information. The term learning difficulties refers to individuals
who are struggling in a specific area of academic pursuit while possessing average or
above average cognitive ability (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and such
individuals are becoming increasingly recognised in the Australian educational
system. According to a survey conducted in 2003, the percentage of Australian
students not achieving the minimum National Benchmarks for Reading are
approximately 8 per cent at Grade 3, and approximately 11 per cent at Grades 5 and 7
(Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 2005). It
is a limiting factor across subject domains, as much of the material is in written form,
30
which becomes increasingly apparent as students progress through the education
system and literacy expectations are increased at a rate beyond which students with
literacy difficulties can maintain. It is estimated that in early high school, children
with average reading ability will read at least ten million words during the school year
whereas students with reading difficulties will read less than one hundred thousand
words during the same year (Lyon, 2003). By any criterion, these outcomes are
unacceptable in terms of the educational, psychosocial wellbeing and life
opportunities of these individuals. In order to improve the achievement potential and
facilitate literacy skills, not only does the underlying source of the difficulty need to
be addressed by specialised intervention and support, but the cognitive attribution and
motivation of the student must also be recognised as an integral factor in the process
(Au, Watkins, & Hattie, 2010; Connor, 1995; Elkins, 2007).
Self-Efficacy and Motivation
An individual’s self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 1981, 1982), that is, the manner in
which they assess their capabilities to function in a given situation, impacts on the
way in which they behave. From the social learning perspective self-efficacy, whether
an accurate or erroneous appraisal, develops from the intake of four different types of
information. These include: prior performance attainments; vicarious experiences of
observing the performances of others (Nicholls, 1978, 1990); verbal persuasion and a
social consensus which imparts capability information; and finally, physiological state
of arousal (e.g. stress level; Bandura, 1982). Once self-efficacy information has been
collected, the material undergoes cognitive appraisal, which is the information that
results in an individual’s self-efficacy. Bandura proposes that self-efficacy profoundly
affects an individual’s motivation at two stages, being influential on thought patterns
prior to and during a situation. In the time leading up to an event people who judge
their capabilities as ineffective in coping with the perceived environmental
requirements consider their personal deficiencies in an inflated manner. Once
experiencing the environment such self-referent misgivings create stress and impair
performance by occupying the mind with thoughts of failings and issues that may
arise (Bandura, 1982). On the other hand, those with a strong sense of self-efficacy
enter a situation with the self-concept that they are able to cope with the challenges
that arise and utilise their attention and effort as they see appropriate. Hence, selfefficacy not only affects how an individual thinks leading up to an event but also
31
during the event itself, possibly hindering or facilitating performance. Therefore, the
way in which we think about ourselves has the potential to have a profound influence
on our behaviour in both adaptive and maladaptive tendencies, and a subsequent
effect on motivation to perform the task.
Attributions for Learning
When performing a task, what is it that forms our internal representation of our
abilities? Individuals undertake a causal search for why an outcome occurred,
especially when the outcome is negative or somehow unexpected (Graham, 1997).
This search leads to the formation of an attribution, that is, the cognitive process of
the belief about the cause of an event. Attributions can be seen as the causal
explanation of why a particular outcome occurred. Furthermore, causal attributions
provide a reason or justification for the outcome (e.g., ‘Why did I fail the spelling
test?’ or ‘Why do none of the other kids eat lunch with me?’). For example,
attributions can affect academic motivation by influencing the way in which we
perceive our academic outcomes: Carr, Borkowski and Maxwell (1991) compared
underachieving and typically-achieving students and found the attributional beliefs
that they held were fundamental in determining academic success by affecting the
way in which they viewed themselves. Furthermore, students with learning
difficulties who attributed their failures to an internal, unstable and controllable cause
(effort), rather than external, stable, and uncontrollable causes (such as ability)
showed improved academic progression (Kistner, Osborne, & Le Verrier, 1988).
Thus, individuals make causal attributions about themselves, which, in turn, influence
the way in which they view themselves and consequently motivation in that particular
area.
Self-Efficacy Theory
Bandura’s self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977, 1981, 1982) did not posit that
causal attributions directly influence behaviour, but that they feed into an individual’s
self-efficacy and consequently determine parts of our thoughts and behaviours. Selfefficacy has a strong relationship with motivation and persistence, including in the
academic realm (Bandura, 1982). An individual’s self-efficacy is said to be largely
determined by actual performance accomplishments (past successes and failures) as
well as in part by the perceived causes that have contributed to the achievement
32
outcomes. It is these perceived causes that contribute to an individual’s self-efficacy
in which attribution theory is identified. Bandura developed a simple theoretical
model of how attributions increase and decrease self-efficacy linking increased selfefficacy to successes being perceived as resulting from ability rather than an external
influence or aid, and decreased self-efficacy to failures being interpreted as the result
of ability rather than an external influence, such as unusual situational circumstances
(Bandura, 1977).
Other factors that Bandura also considered to be determining
factors of self-efficacy development include the perceived outcomes of the task at
hand, the amount of perceived effort, and perceived task difficulty. Each factor
influences an individual’s self-efficacy as the causal factor of the achievement (or
lack of).
Locus, Stability, and Control
Next, the pattern of factors which are the primary influences of an individual
developing an adaptive or maladaptive attribution style will be taken into
consideration. In Weiner’s model of achievement motivation (see reviews in Weiner,
1986, 1995), the attribution that is made for success and failure in learning is the
primary mediating factor for the relationship that exists between learning, emotion,
and motivation.
Weiner (1985, 1995) identified several factors as the dominant
causal perceptions in an achievement context. These are locus, or whether a cause is
internal or external to the individual; stability, that is, if it is stable or changing over
time; and controllability, the amount of control the individual perceives they have
over the outcome and whether other factors have influenced the outcome.
The
manner in which an individual attributes a situation on these three factors leads to
various outcomes on the individual’s affect and behaviour. See Figure 1 below for
an overview of the general attributional model.
Antecedent
Perceived
Causal
Psychological
Behavioural
Conditions
Causes
Dimensions
Consequences
Consequences
Environmental factors
Attributions for
Specific information
Ability
Social norms
Effort
Stability
Expectancy for success Choice
33
Situational features
Luck
Task difficulty
Personal factors
Teacher
Causal schemas
Mood
Attributional bias
Health
Prior knowledge
Fatigue, etc.
Persistence
Locus
Self-efficacy
Level of effort
Achievement
Control
Affect
Individual differences
Attribution Process
Attributional Process
Figure 1. Overview of the general attributional model in Weiner’s achievement motivation
theory. Adapted from Weiner (1986, 1995).
As seen in Figure 1, perceived causes of an event, which are influenced by the
antecedent conditions, can be categorised into the three causal dimensions of stability,
locus, and control. It is these causal dimensions that drive the psychological and
behavioural consequences by influencing expectancies for success, self-efficacy
beliefs, affects, and actual behaviour. Of note, is that when an individual is said to
attribute success to internal and stable factors their motivation to persevere with the
task is increased (Weiner, 1985, 1986, 1995). Whereas, when the causal attribution of
success is perceived as an external factor, such as a teacher is an ‘easy’ marker, the
student’s motivation and perseverance is decreased.
Also, on the other side of
achievement, when an individual fails a task and attributes perceived internal, stable,
and uncontrollable factors as the cause of the failure, such as ‘I failed because I’m not
smart’, they are likely to be less motivated to attempt and persevere on the task again
as they do not perceive a possible change of outcome other than failure in continuing
to attempt the task. Thus, Weiner’s (1985, 1986, 1995) model posits that attributing
success to internal and stable factors (e.g., ability) and not attributing failure to
internal and stable factors (e.g., ability) reflects an adaptive attribution style.
Learned Helplessness
Once a student has developed a maladaptive attribution style towards a task it
is of concern that they will subsequently believe that they are helpless in future
encounters with the task at hand. An individual is said to be helpless when they
34
believe they are unable to have an effect on the outcome of a situation and that an
unwanted outcome will occur regardless of their behaviour. This attribution style
results in the individual engaging less in that task if a negative outcome is apparent
(Maier & Seligman, 1976; Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993; Seligman, 1975,
1995). After much work examining the human psyche, psychologist Martin Seligman
developed a model of learned helplessness to explain a particular human behaviour.
Specifically, when students in an achievement setting are confronted with
circumstances where they repeatedly perceive failure, such as not completing a task in
an allocated time frame or incorrectly completing work, they begin to see their
outcomes as out of their control. Once they feel helpless in controlling the outcome
of a task the individual’s motivation decreases as they envision that continuing to
engage with the task will not change the outcome. As a large proportion of the
mainstream primary curriculum is often literacy based, one group that is often
confronted by this issue is students with reading difficulties (Kunnen & Steenbeek,
1999). However, if they believe that an outcome can not be influenced by their own
behaviour it leads to the perception of decreased responsibility for reading
achievement (Seligman, 2007). For example, a student with a Reading Disorder
(American Psychiatric Association, 2000) who frequently encounters difficulties
whilst learning to read, especially if the condition is not recognised and the
educational material provided is above what can be scaffolded, may develop the belief
that their reading ability can not be improved with practice and effort. Once this
helpless belief develops the individual is less likely to engage in reading as they
perceive that effort does not contribute to increased reading ability. Developing a
helpless attribution style results in the individual believing their effort is futile as they
feel that they do not have control over their own development.
Specifically, a major consequence of helplessness in the learning context is
lack of motivation (Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, & Seligman, 1986; Seligman, 1975).
When an individual perceives their efforts to acquire knowledge as fruitless and hence
uncontrollable it undermines the motivation to spontaneously engage in an activity in
which they feel helpless. For example, a person who has developed the belief that
engaging in reading will not improve their reading ability and further their knowledge
is less likely to pick up a book to read. A second major consequence is the impact of
helplessness on the cognitive processes associated with successful learning. Even
35
when an individual who perceives themselves as helpless and unable to control an
outcome succeeds at the task (has the desired outcome) they have difficulty learning
that their response has succeeded (Peterson, et al., 1993; Seligman, 1975). For
example, a student who has encountered repeated failures in attempts to read and
developed a helpless attribution style will not identify a successful outcome of
reading and be motivated to continue engaging with reading. They possess a cognitive
set in which they perceive themselves as unable to control the outcomes of certain
events and reward themselves for positive reading outcomes, leaving them with a
diminished level of motivation. Hence, an individual who has developed learned
helplessness not only has a decreased level of motivation in comparison to those who
have not, but also when they do finally make gains during learning have limited
efficiency in attributing recognition.
Expectancies and Goals
Researchers Dweck and Reppucci (1973) pioneered the research investigating
the effects of low expectancies in task completion setting, a phrase originally coined
as ‘learned helplessness’ by Seligman, Maier, and Geer (1968). They examined the
theory that an individual develops low expectancies of their behaviour effecting a
given learning situation, and as a result, no longer engage in situations. This was
highlighted by Dweck and Reppucci’s (1973) contrast of students who attributed
successes and failures on a block design task to external or internal and stable or
unstable factors. Stability refers to the extent to which the attribution can change over
time (unstable) or is relatively permanent (stable). The students who persevered the
longest on difficult tasks were those who attributed prolonged failure to effort, rather
than ability or external factors. It appears that as early as the 1970’s, research
suggested that it is the perceived control which we are able to exert over our successes
and failures that affect our motivation to persevere.
Attributing a failure to an
internal, unstable factor, one that we have the power to change, is the key to
perseverance during multiple failures.
In order to further understand the link between the motivation patterns of
behaviour and the underlying psychological process, Elliott and Dweck (1988) and
later Grant and Dweck (2003), investigated the effect of goals on motivation.
Specifically, two classes of goals were identified: performance goals (in which
individuals are concerned with attracting approving judgements of their competence)
36
and learning goals (in which individuals are concerned with increasing their
competence) (Dweck, 1986, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988).
Interestingly, they
found that each class of goal was associated with a different pattern of perseverance.
Performance goals (concerned with social perception of ability) were associated with
a vulnerability to helplessness in the face of difficulties, that is, avoidance or
deteriorating performance when challenged. Whereas, individuals concerned with
learning goals (the goal to further competence), when in the same situation as those
with performance goals, displayed resilience (Molden & Dweck, 2000) by striving to
achieve even when failure was presented.
This result may be linked with an
individual’s perception of intelligence, that is, whether they consider it to be a
dynamic or static entity (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Grant & Dweck, 2003). Therefore,
the goal that one aims to achieve from completing a task and their view of intelligence
are factors which affect task perseverance and motivation.
An additional factor in understanding perseverance and motivation in learning
is the reaction to encountered difficulties. Research conducted by Diener and Dweck
(1978, 1980) and later by Cain and Dweck (1995) displayed a stark contrast between
the cognitions, affect, and behaviours of individuals classified as having a helpless
response to difficulties, as opposed to a mastery-oriented response. Students were
characterised as helpless based on their response on the Intellectual Responsibility
Scale (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall, 1965) indicating a neglect of the role of
effort in their failures (Diener & Dweck, 1978, 1980). Whereas mastery-oriented
students were identified based on contrasting responses indicating an emphasis on
effort in the face of failure. The studies found that students identified as having a
helpless response system of failure reported that their failures were due to inadequate
ability (Cain & Dweck, 1995), negative affect (e.g. aversion to the task), and some
diverted attention away from task performance by discussing talents in other domains
or altering task rules (Diener & Dweck, 1978, 1980). In contrast, mastery-oriented
students viewed the tasks which were unsolvable as challenges to be mastered by
applying more effort. In essence, the research showed that students with a helpless
response to failure, when placed in the same success and failure situation as masteryoriented students, attributed difficulties as failures and an indication of low ability.
Furthermore, Diener and Dweck (1978, 1980) proposed that they believed any future
effort would be useless and possibly further document their ‘low’ ability. These
37
results suggest that the attributions an individual holds about personal events of
success and failure have a profound effect on their cognitions, affect, and
performance (Dweck, 2000).
The social cognitive theory of attributions towards learning was later put into
practice by manipulating children’s theories of intelligence and by assessing their
choice of goal on an upcoming task (Dweck, Tenney & Dinces, 1982, as cited by
Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Students were oriented toward a theory of intelligence that
is linked to either a performance or learning goal (Dweck & Leggett, 1988) by
reading passages that portrayed notable individuals (e.g. Albert Einstein) in the light
of each type of intelligence theory. Interestingly, after only such a minor exposure to
different ways of viewing intelligence, students who were in the condition linked to
learning goals exhibited a learning goal style on a task following the passage reading,
and contrastingly students in the performance goals condition adopted that style.
Thus indicating that students can be oriented, even if only temporarily, toward a style
to approach a task. Once students begin to approach tasks in a learning goal manner,
rather than a performance goal style, their likelihood of task perseverance is increased
(Molden & Dweck, 2000), hence increasing the learning that can occur as a result of
engaging in the task itself (Dweck, 2000).
Learning Difficulties and Academic Self-Esteem
One group of individuals who are vulnerable to adopting a maladaptive
attribution style is those with learning difficulties. Specifically, individuals with
learning difficulties are often found to have less motivation to persist on a task, which
they find difficult in comparison to a student without learning difficulties (Bear,
Minke, & Manning, 2002; Beitchman & Young, 1997; Zisimopoulos & Galanaki,
2009). They can be expected to experience less success and receive less positive
feedback than do children on average (Kunnen & Steenbeek, 1999). It has been
suggested that experiencing less success than the average student results in
individuals with learning difficulties developing a self-image of having limited or no
control over their achievement outcomes and perceive any effort as a futile attempt
(Fuller & McLeod, 1995; Licht, 1983). This can create an unfortunate cycle as the
individual’s motivation to engage in the task of difficulty is decreased, less
opportunities to learn arise, and their perception of limited control is reinforced, seen
38
as early in the students education as Grade one (Lyon, 2003). When students with
learning difficulties are compared to students without learning difficulties, several
social and academic differences emerge between the groups indicating that those with
difficulties have less motivation, lower perceived control (Grolnick & Ryan, 1990;
Short, 1992), maladaptive attributional style, low achievement expectations, low
persistence on academic tasks and low academic self-concept (Montgomery, 1994;
Nunez, et al., 2005; Nunez, Gonzalez-Pumariega, & Gonzalez-Pienda, 1995;
Tabassam & Grainger, 2002). Furthermore, when students with learning difficulties
fail a task they generally consider it a reflection of their ability, or lack thereof (Weisz
& Stipek, 1982). This, in turn, can threaten self-esteem (Nunez, et al., 2005; Weisz &
Stipek, 1982), leaving students with difficulties in learning with a potential emotional
response to failure.
Broad or Narrow?
It is this cumulative cycle described above that perpetuates into learned
helplessness in individuals with learning difficulties (Halmhuber & Paris, 1993;
Onatsu-Arvilommi & Nurmi, 2000). Sorensen and colleagues (2003) suggest with
caution from a two-year longitudinal study of students with learning difficulties that
they are affected in other psychosocial areas apart from academic progress. However,
it appears that the learned helplessness is limited to those areas in which they
experience difficulties (Frederisckson & Jacobs, 2001). Examining the general
potential differences in academic self-concept for students with learning difficulties
and those without, a recent review of the relevant research investigating the area
found that 89% of studies showed students with learning difficulties had a more
negative academic self-concept (Zeleke, 2004). Whereas when assessing general selfconcept, the review found that out of 28 studies only 29% of them showed that
normally achieving children had significantly higher general self-concept than
children with learning difficulties (Zeleke, 2004). These results reflect a particular
pattern of self-concept that students with learning difficulties develop, that of a lower
self-concept in an academic area but it only affects approximately one third of
students in a profound and encompassing negative general self-concept. Hence, when
targeting the motivation and perseverance of students with learning difficulties by
examining their attribution, it is likely that other areas of strengths can be used to
facilitate their confidence.
39
Pattern of Attributions
Of consideration when examining atttributions of students with and without
learning difficulties is the level of control which they perceive they hold in a given
task. Licht, Kistner, Ozkaragoz, Shapiro, and Clausen (1985) investigated
uncontrollable factors that lead to decreased motivation in students with learning
difficulties and found that attributing failure to one’s ability was particularly related to
decreased task perseverance. Whereas attributing failure to external factors, such as
the teacher or task, was found not to have a negative relationship with persistence
even though it is also uncontrollable. This result highlights the strong effect
attributing failure to ability can have on an individual’s learning motivation.
Furthermore, Frederickson and Jacobs (2001) found that among both students with
and without learning difficulties, those with controllable attributions for success and
failure had higher reading scores and perceived academic self-efficacy compared to
those with uncontrollable attributions. Thus, holding the belief that one has control
over the learning outcomes is an integral aspect of task motivation and perseverance.
As a result of the research linking academic motivation to self-efficacy
through adaptive or maladaptive attributions, Kistner, Osborne, and Le Verrier (1988)
tracked the academic performance of students with diagnosed learning difficulties
over a two-year period to investigate what attribution constituted the best academic
outcome. They assessed student attributions using hypothetical situations for success
and failure in the classroom and compared whether students’ attributions were
primarily internal or external, effort expended, and ability.
Internal attributions
included ability, whereas external attributions referred to factors such as task
difficulty, and teacher issues. Interestingly, Kistner and colleagues (1988) found that
students with learning difficulties who attributed failures to insufficient effort were
associated with increased academic progress as well as increased teacher approval of
classroom behaviour. Furthermore, the study found that internal attributions, ability
and effort for success and failure, were associated with academic progress. This
finding suggests that students with learning difficulties who attributed their failures to
an internal, unstable and controllable cause (effort), rather than external, stable, and
40
uncontrollable causes (such as ability) showed improved academic progression.
Similarly, research examining the difference between academic self-concept found
that students with learning difficulties had a lower perceived academic self-concept
than those without (Boetsch, Green, & Pennington, 1996; Casey, Levy, Brown, &
Brooks-Gunn, 1992). Furthermore, the same pattern of success being attributed to
uncontrollable, external factors (such as luck or level of difficulty) and failures being
attributed to uncontrollable, internal factors (such as ability) was observed by
Jacobsen, Lowery and DuCette (1986) among students with learning difficulties.
Hence, it is likely, given the relationship between persistence and an individual’s task
performance, that students who attributed their failures to insufficient effort were
more likely to persist on difficult tasks, as perceived past experience indicates that
insufficient effort is associated with failure. In addition, an individual’s attribution
that effort is the cause of task failure can be controlled by the individual, hence
developing the belief that increasing effort can lead to a positive outcome of task
success.
Future Direction
As such, students with learning difficulties appear to experience low academic
self-esteem which subsequently affects their academic goals and persistence. This
poor motivation for academic tasks among students with learning difficulties is an
area of intervention with limited research basis in Australia (Elkins, 2007). Yet, it is
an area, which is becoming increasingly recognised as an area of much needed
attention, especially among students with learning difficulties in the upper years of
Australian Primary education (Elkins, 2007; Frederickson, 1998). It has become
apparent that merely focusing on the area in which a student experiences difficultly
will not increase their perseverance in that area, whereas working on changing their
attributions from negative to positive may improve task persistence, practice and
progress (Frederickson, 1998). According to a recent review of attribution training
programs by Robertson (2000), they can be effective in creating change in a young
person’s life by working on the way they are thinking and processing their successes
and failures while learning. By suggesting that students are not actually failing
because of a lack of ability, they can begin to consider attributing negative
educational experiences to other, internal, unstable and controllable factors (such as
effort). An intervention aimed at improving the academic self-concept, developed by
41
the manner in which students attribute their successes and failures in learning,
demands the attention of those educating students with learning difficulties. Once this
issue of motivation and perseverance in children with perceived learning difficulties is
addressed the students can then further apply the additional learning strategies that
have been taught over the course of their primary education through increased task
persistence.
Interventions Targeting Attributions
As discussed above, given that individuals with learning difficulties are likely
to have maladaptive attributions that lead to decreased motivation and perseverance,
an intervention targeting attribution styles should ensure beneficial outcomes. Several
techniques have been attempted over the years including: persuasion techniques
(Chapin & Dyck, 1976; Fowler & Peterson, 1981), instructing students in the ‘correct’
way to think about successes and failures in learning; the modelling approach
(Borkowski, Weyhing, & Carr, 1988; Schunk, Hanson, & Cox, 1987; Thomas &
Pashley, 1982), using attributional retraining alongside a reading program; operant
conditioning approach (Andrews & Debus, 1978), using verbal and tactile reinforcers
to promote increased effort; and finally the cognitive behavioural approach (Berkeley,
Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 2011; Haynes Stewart, et al., 2011; Toland & Boyle, 2008),
incorporating cognitive and behavioural techniques to bring about meta-cognitive
change. Overall, the various approaches to an attributional intervention have been
effective in improving the motivation and perseverance of students with learning
difficulties. Specifically, attributing failure on a task to lack of effort was found to be
an integral aspect of the retraining process (Forsterling, 1985; Robertson, 2000).
Thus, this study indicates that it is possible to improve an individual’s task
performance and persistence by focusing on attribution retraining.
Cognitive Behavioural Based Programs
Of particular interest is the effectiveness of the cognitive behavioural
approach to attribution retraining. Over the last century, cognitive behaviourism has
undergone extensive development and has become an abundantly recognised area of
research. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a technique pioneered by Beck
(1976), refers to the analysis and use of techniques focusing on our thoughts, feelings
and behaviours.
It focuses on the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and
42
behaviours and ways in which we can have control over them. It is based on the idea
that a person’s thoughts precede their feelings and behaviours. This concept aligns
with attribution theory, in that it is the cognition or the attribution, about an event that
affects consequent feelings and behaviours. It is the identification and intervention
aimed at this link between an individuals thoughts, feelings and behaviours that has
been shown to be so effective in promoting adaptive attribution style among children
with learning difficulties (Berkeley, et al., 2011; Toland & Boyle, 2008), as well as
mental health concerns such as depression (for example, Klein, Jacobs, & Reinecke,
2007; Seligman, 2007; Verduyn, 2000) and anxiety (for a review see, Ishikawa,
Okajima, Matsuoka, & Sakano, 2007). Given the unity of attributional and cognitivebehavioural theory an intervention based on this approach appears to be a compelling
option to increase the motivation and perseverance of those with learning difficulties.
Individual versus Group Design
Group intervention is a cost- and time-effective method of assisting
individuals using CBT (Silverman, et al., 1999). However, its effectiveness cannot
simply be extrapolated from the individual interventions with people due to several
factors. Conceptually, it is possible that the presence of other people may interfere
with the therapist-child rapport and present examples of negative modelling. On the
other hand it is possible that the group intervention setting may enhance the therapistchild rapport, participants can also enhance or develop peer relationships as in
previous group programs (e.g. Silverman, et al., 1999; Toland & Boyle, 2008), and
present examples of positive modelling. Of note, many current evidence- and CBTbased programs advocate the use of groups where peer modelling is a valued
commodity integral to the interventions effectiveness (for example, Pertersen &
Adderley, 2002; Petersen & Lewis, 2004; Seligman, 2007; Stallard, 2002). Therefore,
overall the evidence suggests that a group intervention using a cognitive-behavioural
approach is an effective way to deliver the instructive material.
Cognitive Behavioural Approaches to Attribution Retraining
One such study has applied a cognitive behavioural approach to attribution
retraining in the United Kingdom. Toland and Boyle (2008) conducted 12 group
sessions over a six-month period at public primary schools with students identified as
having difficulties learning and associated poor self-esteem in the classroom. The
43
grade five and six students in groups of five were presented with the link between
thoughts, feelings and actions using discussion, modelling, role-play and work sheets.
After completing the program students significantly improved on reading ability, yet
not spelling ability. Toland and Boyle (2008) suggested that perhaps this result was
due to the classroom labour associated with spelling, rather than the occasional
spontaneous nature of reading. This study highlighted the effectiveness of a cognitive
behavioural approach to attribution retraining in a group intervention program in the
senior primary school years. However, the authors noted that the study was timeconsuming and required a high commitment from the psychologists in the
development and execution of the program.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is ample research theorising that attributions are the
source of motivation and shape individual self-efficacy, yet it is apparent that a
practical and effective program using a cognitive behavioural approach can be
successfully implemented in an educational setting. The research discussed
throughout this chapter demonstrates that students with difficulties learning in the
classroom are particularly vulnerable to developing maladaptive attributions.
Students with learning difficulties are susceptible to attributing success to external,
stable and uncontrollable sources (such as task difficulty) and failure to internal,
stable and uncontrollable sources (such as ability). The introduction of such an
attribution retraining program appears to be a viable option for inclusion in an
educational setting to increase student motivation to persevere on tasks.
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51
Chapter 3
The 21st Century Law Student: The Lecture Room or the Mobile Phone?
Tom Serby
Anglia Law School , Cambridge.
Abstract
This chapter describes the replacement of “face to face” lectures with recorded
lectures (referred to in this chapter as “i-lectures” or “screencast lectures” and often
referred to by others as “podcasts”) designed to be listened to online by law students
on a professional postgraduate programme in a British university, where the mode of
study was part-time. Through the use of questionnaires (before and after the
introduction of the online teaching methods) research was undertaken into students’
opinions on online or blended learning and whether there was a divergence of opinion
between full-time and part-time students. Additional research was made into the
assessment results of the two cohorts after the introduction of online teaching. A
subsidiary aspect of the research was an empirical analysis of the efficacy of Multiple
Choice Questionnaires (MCQ) as an assessment method. This chapter briefly
describes the hurdles that exist in terms of cost and time in the switch to i-learning
and enumerates the pedagogical benefits of blended learning, in particular looking at
the concept of so-called “just in time teaching” associated with the use of formative
MCQs (Novak & Patterson 2010).
Introduction
The postgraduate programme on which the research is based is the professional
qualification, the Legal Practice Course (LPC), the passing of which is a prerequisite
for training as a solicitor in England and Wales. Prior to the research project the
University offered, on different campuses, both a one-year Full-time LPC and a Parttime LPC (two years of study) but there was no online learning element to either.
Taking the premise that students enrol on Part-time courses because they prefer to
study flexibly (Galusha, 1997) I perceived the lack of any distance/blended learning
element in the University’s Part-time postgraduate professional law programme as a
52
major weakness. There was no existing experience of i-lectures within the
University’s Law School on which I could draw when implementing the project, and I
had no previous experience myself of any aspect of online learning.
The program was not exclusively online by distance learning as the students also
attended a two hour interactive workshop after every i-lecture. The same programme
was concurrently taught at a different campus to a cohort of Full-time students who
continued to attend face-to-face lectures, and where the other online features of the
Part-time programme were predominantly absent.
The decision to introduce i-learning into the Part-time course was mine but I did
receive institutional support. Lack of leadership in the Higher Education sector
(whether by Budget holders, Deans or Senior Management Boards) is potentially fatal
to innovative expansion of e-learning (Mapuva & Muyengwa, 2009). The LPC online
learning programme for Part-time students described in this chapter was part of a
formal University Learning and Teaching project.
Prior to the introduction of i-lectures the Part-time LPC students’ one day of study per
week on campus was an eight-hour day. This was required to fit in the interactive
workshops and the face-to-face lectures into the one-day. Collaboration between
students heightens interactivity, and pre-class activity enables students to discuss
collaboratively. Squeezing teaching into an eight-hour day militated against
productive interactivity and was compounded by the fact that, as the major LPC
provider in the eastern region of England, many students would travel long distances
to attend on campus.
In all there were 23 recorded screencast i-lectures in the Business Law and Practice
(BLP) module of the LPC to replace the 23 one hour face-to-face lectures. These new
MP4 compatible i-lectures or screencasts were loaded onto the University’s online
Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so that the lectures were accessible online at a
time and place of the student’s choice. Other online elements introduced into this
Part-time law course were the use of an online Discussion Board where students post
comments as part of an online debate, and online Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
attempted by students after listening to an i-lecture. The only requirement was that
53
students listen to the i-lecture (and attempt the associated online MCQs) before the
interactive face-to-face two-hour workshop, which follows every i-lecture. Full-time
LPC students, on the University’s other campus, continued to study through
attendance at face-to-face lectures (about one third of contact hours) as well as the
interactive Workshops (two thirds of overall contact hours). The Full-time students
were only given access to the BLP i-lectures on the University’s VLE about a month
after their lecture and after they had attended the workshop/tutorial relating to the
lecture. Therefore, for the Full-time students the i-lectures were available only for the
purposes of revision and watching them was a purely optional exercise. Interestingly
there was no drop-off in attendance at lectures from these Full-time students (a
common fear among teachers contemplating placing i-lectures online). This confirms
previous studies (e.g. Watkins, 2010) into i-lectures as a supplement to live lectures.
Once loaded onto the VLE the i-lectures remain there so the students can ‘listen
again’ more than once, and many (Full-time and Part-time) chose to do so in the runup to their assessments.
The cost of the technology required for the project is absolutely minimal; simply a
licence for one of the appropriate recording software programmes that now exists on
the market (of which there are many eg Audacity, Camtasia, snapzpro; see Watkins,
2010 for a discussion on podcast software). PowerPoint slides were created to
accompany the voice recording along with links to external websites, such as UK
Companies House online, so that students could access primary materials at the
direction of the lecturer (such as forms filed by businesses at Companies House) as
they listened to the lecture. It has been observed that simply recording the audio
component of a weekly lecture can potentially result in an experience for the listener
that is boring, disconnected and difficult to follow (Wagstaff, 2007).
Prior to commencing the project the author was aware of the countervailing views on
i-lectures. Some research (e.g. Garrison & Kanuka, 2004) has been critical of the
pedagogic benefits of i-lectures on account of the lessening of physical interactivity
between students and staff (using some of the timetable time released by the phasing
out of face-to-face lectures, we set up a forum for our Part-time students to interact
with local trainee solicitors thereby reducing any such isolation-induced anxiety that
may have existed (Lee & Chan, 2007)). A number of authors (e.g. Chan, Lee &
54
McLoughlin, 2006) have spoken against lengthy i-lectures (i.e. those over twenty
minutes, the i-lectures recorded in this present study were on average 40 minutes). It
has been suggested that the use of internet technology can restrict access to the
learning materials to students who are from non-technical backgrounds (O’Connell,
2002). Another criticism of blended learning techniques has been that working at
home is not conducive to study as there could be too many distractions (Shabba,
2000). This study seeks to test some of these hypotheses in order to understand the
optimum learning environments.
Blended Learning
The introduction of the online features into the Part-time course is an example of
blended learning (marrying online learning to traditional classroom teaching) of
which there has been a growth in recent years across a range of Higher Education
programmes. Blended learning has been described as: “a systematic mix of eLearning
and learning in face-to-face contexts, in which coherence across the two contexts
from a student perspective is achieved by focusing on the same intended learning
outcomes” (Ellis & Calvo, 2004, p. 268).
“There is considerable intuitive appeal to the concept of integrating the strengths of
synchronous (face-to-face) and asynchronous …. learning activities. At the same
time, there is considerable complexity in its implementation with the challenge of
virtually limitless design possibilities and applicability to so many contexts”
(Garrison & Kanuka, 2004, p. 98). There is of course much more to blended learning
than using a VLE as an electronic depository of lecture notes. Maharg (2010) has led
the way in the field of legal education in pioneering online transactional learning.
Previous research I conducted looked at the use of online transactional learning to
study the law of probate (Serby, 2011).
As Mikat, Martinez & Jorstad (2007) point out, podcasts (a generic term which
includes i-lectures ) enable students to (i) listen again; (ii) pause for further reading or
reflection during the course of a lecture; and (iii) choose a time to learn that is most
beneficial to them rather than to a central timetable and they (podcasts) "are versatile,
reusable, interesting and stimulating to the new generation of technology-savvy
55
student" (p. 15). The traditional lecture, unlike the i-lecture, is of course only
available to students to attend once. Many learners prefer auditory learning to reading.
The ability to re-listen, and to listen at a time and place of the listener’s choice, are
unique features of the i-lecture. The i-lectures were supplemented by online debate on
a VLE Discussion Board, which as McCall (2010, p. 58) has commented is an
“asynchronous medium [which] allows students time to develop their responses, come
back to a thread with new thoughts when convenient and allows opportunities for
contributions from less dominating types of students who might be reluctant to speak
up in class”.
Aside from the pedagogical benefits of blended learning techniques, there are other
considerations; as Ribiero (2002) has pointed out, online teaching materials can also
easily be adapted for use as corporate training sessions, providing a commercial spinoff for e-learning to the Higher Education sector. Increasing online learning can mean
a saving in both staff and student travel time.
The Differing Demands of Full-Time and Part-Time Students
The move towards a greater element of online learning for part-time students was
partly predicated on an increased demand for flexible learning by a student population
who have to balance studies with ‘income generation’ which is only partly linked to
the requirement of today’s student population to earn while studying. Obtaining work
experience in a legal environment increases law students’ chances of obtaining
employment in their chosen field, but without flexible blended learning, time
dedicated to such employment might impede study. Empirical research into the
University’s LPC student body revealed that a far higher percentage of part-time than
full-time LPC students combined their LPC studies with paid work in a legal
environment. The demographic differences between full and part-time students in
Higher Education generally have been well documented as has the preference of older
students for more interactive teaching methods (Merrill, 2001). Our University’s
statistics show that a significantly higher percentage of LPC Full-time students are
recent graduates (about ninety percent), with little or no significant work experience,
prepared to devote most of their time during their year studying the LPC to the
56
course. Conversely higher proportions of part-time LPC students (over fifty percent)
have had significant work experience and are actually working whilst studying.
Student Opinion on Flexible Blended Learning
Prior to introducing the i-learning onto the Part-time course student surveys were
undertaken. Student evaluations on their own should not inform changes to teaching
practices. The framing of questions so as to lead to positive answers has been
described as a process of ‘seduction’ and student opinion as to their preferred learning
style may not reflect what is pedagogically best (Bligh, 1998). However the research I
carried out through the medium of Likert style questionnaires asking students their
opinion on blended learning was valuable. In accordance with the University’s
Research Ethics policy students were asked to give their informed consent to the use
of the results of the surveys on an anonymous basis. One of the aspects I was looking
for was empirical evidence of any discrepancy between the views of part-time and
full-time students on i-learning. The survey of the part-time students was repeated
again after i-learning was introduced. Broadly the results supported the existing
research into the different expectations of, and attitudes to, blended learning of fulltime (characterised as on-campus) as opposed to part-time (off-campus) students (van
Zanten, 2008).
In the Academic Year before the introduction of the i-learning I polled the existing
Part-time LPC students in regard to the prospective replacement of face to face
lectures with screencast i-lectures, by seeking a response to the following statements:
Currently on the Part-time course the students have an eight-hour day. It may be
possible by developing remote learning for lectures (LGSs) to reduce the requirement
for physical attendance on campus to 6 hours. I would welcome this.
Strongly
agree
Agree
Indifferent
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
The advantages of remote learning are outweighed by the disadvantage,
namely that there would be no facility in remote learning to question the
57
Tutor during the LGS session if I did not understand something clearly.
Consequently I would prefer it if all LGSs continued to be delivered face to
face.
Strongly
Agree
Indifferent
Disagree
agree
Strongly
Disagree
All 25 of the students took part in the survey. The result of the survey was that all but
two (over 92%) of the part-time students endorsed the introduction of screencast ilectures in place of face to face lectures on campus, by indicating Strongly Agree or
Agree to the first statement and Strongly Disagree or Disagree to the second. The
same questionnaire was put to our forty full-time LPC students all of whom, as
referred to above, studied on a different campus, attending four days rather than one
day a week, with never more than five hours contact time per day. The response to the
same survey questions was more evenly split among our full-time students with a
majority (of one) against replacement of face-to-face lectures with i-lectures.
In the following academic year, I did a third survey of part-time students. This cohort
had experienced both i-lectures (in Business law) and face-to-face lectures (in their
other first year subjects). The result of this poll was almost identical to the result of
the poll of the previous cohort of part-time students, with over 90% of part-time
students wanting screencast i-lectures in all modules, not just the Business law
module, in place of face to face lectures.
Multiple Choice Questioning to Reinforce I-Lectures
The major criticism (predominantly from Full-time students) levelled at i-lectures in
the “free comment” section of the student questionnaire reflected student concern that
there would be no means of “checking for understanding” of the i-lectures with the
lecturer not being physically present. A typical comment was: “I’ve paid a lot of
money for this course and I expect the lecturer to be there to answer my questions”.
58
There was also concern expressed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (the
professional body which oversees LPC courses in England and Wales) as to the
means for checking whether students had actually engaged in the i-lectures at all,
since there would be no register taken of student attendance. Both these concerns can
be addressed by the use of MCQs. To accompany each i-lecture I drafted 23 sets of
Multiple Choice Questions. The introduction of online MCQs was primarily intended
to make it easier to align constructively the learning outcomes of the i-lectures and the
interactive face-to-face workshops, which followed, and to encourage reflective and
deeper learning of the i-lectures. The MCQs were made available on the VLE at the
same time as the i-lecture. Each MCQ comprised 4 statements and the students had to
choose which ONE of the statements was correct in relation to a given statement.
The University’s VLE automatically generates a score in relation to the success rate
of the students (individually and collectively) in respect of the MCQs they attempted.
This enabled me to prepare before the Tutorial/Workshop to expand on areas where
students had demonstrated an incomplete understanding, which has been described as
“just in time teaching” (Novak & Patterson 2010). The further dialogical feedback
made possible during workshop tutorials was the greatest pedagogic benefit of the
MCQs. I was also able to gauge which students were struggling generally with the
course. An important feature of online MCQs is that they report back to students.
Such was the motivational nature of the MCQs that the take-up by part-time students
was nearly 100 percent. In fact the peer discussions I facilitated during workshops
about the MCQs meant that students overwhelmingly appreciated the benefits for
them of attempting the MCQs on time so as not to miss out on these discussions.
The advantages of MCQs are obvious from the perspective of efficiency in marking
across a broad range of the syllabus. It is commonly acknowledged that online
computer-assisted assessment (CAA) can dramatically reduce the time wasted by the
teacher on formative and summative testing. The biggest criticism of MCQs in terms
of pedagogy is that students do not have to engage in a positive formulation of their
ideas, since they have only to choose from a number of pre-prepared answers offered
to them. Another argument marshalled against MCQs is that they are “too easy”,
sometimes leading to scores in excess of the score achieved in longer style written
essay answers, and of course they have been criticised as rewarding guessing, the
59
“lucky monkey” argument. The latter problem can be vitiated by awarding a negative
mark for the wrong answer and the results of my research (see below) showed that
students did not score more highly when assessed by MCQs. In short MCQs are often
disparaged as a means of testing knowledge, especially so in a liberal arts degree such
as Law, but not all legal educators concur with this view (Alldridge, 1997). Some
researchers, for example, have maintained that MCQs are able to test understanding at
a higher cognitive level (Johnstone & Ambusaidi, 2000). There are numerous guides
to writing effective MCQs, the overarching focus being on the quality of the
“distracter” questions, which should not be too obviously wrong (Bull & McKenna,
2004).
The students embraced the MCQs with relish, and commented that they appreciated
the fact that they received immediate automatically generated feedback on their
answer. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) in their research into the pedagogical
efficacy of MCQs discuss the feedback given to students in relation to MCQ
assessment and focus on the issue of learner self-regulation through MCQ testing.
Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick’s seven principles of good feedback can be distilled into
three overarching principles or features, all three of which are present in the format of
MCQ testing I used. First, the testing is “open book” and as there is no time limit
imposed on the students they are encouraged to reflect on the question and read
around the subject to improve their chance of choosing the right answer. Secondly,
the use of MCQs in conjunction with i-lectures is directly tied to a classroom activity
in that the workshop/tutorial following on from the i-lecture allows the teacher to
discuss with the students their MCQ experience and the group to discuss together the
answers. Thirdly, the MCQs are repeatable either immediately after the student has
received automatic notification that they have picked the wrong answer, or indeed
later in the year, for example as a revision tool. By this means student confidence in
their understanding of the materials increased as, assuming regular attendance at
workshops, where I engaged with students in discussion of the MCQs and the
learning objectives upon which they are based, students’ MCQ scores increased as
they redid the MCQs throughout the year, building up to their summative assessment
which is at the end of the course. This motivational aspect of MCQs is a powerful tool
in instilling in students an understanding of how they are progressing their
understanding and what the learning outcomes of the course are. Another way of
60
characterising the three phases of feedback present at different stages of the MCQ
cycle is self; peer and tutor. What we have not done on the project, yet, is to take the
student reflection via MCQs to the next level of higher level or meta-learning through
MCQs where the students construct their own MCQs where the instructor perspective
no longer has primacy.
Empirical Research of Assessment Results
I undertook some research into students’ pass rates on the formative online MCQs
compared to their pass rates in the summative assessments at the end of the course.
First, I analysed the results of the full-time students for whom the MCQs (like the ilectures) were not compulsory. These students were aware that the MCQs were
available online and that they were self-marking, were not compulsory, and did not
count as a form of continuous assessment. I was interested in two issues:
(i)
the student’s final mark in their summative and their success rate in the
formative MCQs they attempted;
(ii)
whether undertaking formative MCQs improved a student’s prospect in the
summative assessment (i.e. the relationship between the student’s final
exam mark and how many of the formative online MCQs they attempted).
(i) In the first year of i-lectures there were 40 students registered on the full-time LPC
course, but as the MCQs were not compulsory only 26 students attempted some of the
MCQs. Of these, 16 students attempted half or more of the 23 sets of MCQs (the
minimum reliable sample for the purposes of this analysis). Of these students, four
attained an aggregate score on the MCQs of more than 70%, five scored between 60%
and 70%, four scored between 50% and 60% and three scored less than 50%. In
every case save one, these students scored within these margins in their (non MCQ)
summative assessment. Each student’s pass rate on the MCQs proved to be a very
reliable indicator of the student’s exam prospects and their overall understanding of
the learning outcomes of the Business Law module. The author acknowledges the
potential of sampling bias as only 16 from 40 students completed at least half of the
MCQs thus meaning only 16 can be compared to the non-MCQ summative
assessment.
61
(ii) On the other hand, there was no correlation between the number of MCQs
attempted by students and their final exam grade. Of the 16 Full-time students who
attempted more than half of the MCQ exercises, roughly equal numbers attained a
Fail, Pass, Merit or Distinction in the summative assessment (with slightly higher
proportions in the latter categories). A significant proportion of students (over thirty
percent) attaining a Merit or Distinction in their summative assessment did not
attempt any of the MCQs.
The other aspect of my empirical research into the students’ assessment results was:
(iii)
a comparison of the summative assessment results of the Part-time and
Full-time students in Business Law.
The overall pass rate for the Part-time students in the summative assessment was
higher by 15% than the pass rate of the Full-time students. The results of the
assessments in the other LPC subjects (where there was no element of i-learning)
showed that the only subject that the Part-time students significantly outperformed the
Full-time students in was Business Law, the only subject where i-lectures (and the
other associated i-learning described above) had replaced face-to-face lectures. Data
from LPC assessments at the University in the five previous years demonstrated that
historically the pass rate in Business Law and Practice was broadly equivalent
between full-time and part-time students and that part-time students had never
previously outperformed full-time students by this extent. Both sets of students (parttime and full-time) had the same proportion of time within the overall LPC allocated
to Business Law and as all modules have to be passed to pass the LPC there is no
evidence that students prioritise any one module (for example Business Law).
Conclusion
Previous research has elicited evidence for the obtaining of higher grades by students
with a substantial degree of e-learning in their syllabus (e.g. Holley, 2002). Research
into the performance in the summative Business Law assessment of the full-time and
part-time students in the first year of the i-lecture project supports that theory,
although as a statistical sample (54 students) the findings are far from conclusive on
account of the sample’s size.
62
As a result of the success of this project and positive student feedback, colleagues
within the Law School have lost some of their inhibitions towards technology and
more online learning methods have been introduced to a range of programmes in the
Law School. All modules on the University’s Part-time LPC have now replaced face
to face lectures with i-lectures and online MCQs. Change engenders change and
podcasts have now been extended to other areas, such as feedback given on student
assessments (which has been extremely well received by students).
Much of the current academic research and orthodoxy suggests that the role of the ilecture is to supplement but not to replace the traditional face-to-face lecture and that
students do not want to abandon the classroom for the IPhone or the like, but
appreciate the i-lecture as a supplementary resource only (Watkins, 2010). My own
research suggests that for a significant part of the student body (part-time students)
that is not so, at least in the case of postgraduate professional studies in law. Our parttime students actively welcome a higher degree of blended online learning in the LPC
program, and their academic attainments have actually improved after face-to-face
lectures were phased out in favour of i-lectures.
As has been evidenced by previous research, greater use of MCQs (an online
accompaniment to the i-lectures) as a form of feedback to students gives them a
greater idea as to how they are progressing, and motivates students to revisit the
learning materials to check for understanding in areas where they have not succeeded
first time in the MCQs (Nicol, 2006). My research also indicated that the correlation
in results between the online formative MCQs and summative assessments was
significantly close.
Before I commenced the research project I strongly suspected that part-time students
would be more receptive to flexible or i-learning than full-time students (I was proved
right by the results of the student feedback) and that the performance of the part-time
students in assessments (which are the same for both cohorts) would be no worse than
full-time student results (part-time students actually outperformed their full-time peers
but only in the module where there was greater i-learning). I also believed that
colleagues who run other modules in the LPC at the University would look at the
63
results of the project and want to place i-learning elements in their own modules (they
did; there was a strong student demand for it). I also believed that following the
introduction of flexible blended learning at one campus, applications would rise in
proportion to applications to enrol on the full-time course at the other campus (correct
again!). For part-time law students, the majority of whom wish to supplement their
academic learning with relevant work experience, the benefits of the lecture listened
to on the mobile phone, outweigh the attractions of the traditional lecture theatre.
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Chapter 4
The Creation and Implementation of Interactive Opportunities to Promote
Learning between Lectures
Jacqueline Carnegie,
University of Ottawa, Canada
ABSTRACT
The large student enrolments and content-dense curricula associated with many
undergraduate programs make it difficult for instructors to interact individually with
students during lectures to ensure that essential cognitive links are being made and
that the course content is fully understood. However, the existence of universal
student access to course web sites via the Internet allows the learning environment to
be extended well beyond the classroom by providing a wealth of opportunities for
interactive learning as well as comprehensive self-testing. This chapter will begin
with an exploration of the effective use of online discussion boards and self-testing
tools associated with commercially-available course web site platforms such as
BlackboardR and the open source course management system, MoodleR. The ability of
a discussion forum to promote social constructivism by creating a virtual classroom in
which students can ask questions in a risk-free environment, mentor one another, and
even work actively together in small groups to explore new concepts and complete
assignments will be described. The advantages of instantaneous feedback associated
with various online self-testing tools will be recognized. Guiding principles and
methods for the creation of animations to support e-learning will be briefly reviewed
as will the ability of podcasts to allow students to review lecture highlights anywhere
and at any time. Finally, students will be acknowledged as tremendous assets who can
recognize learning challenges and assist in developing creative approaches to tackling
these hurdles.
Keywords: e-learning, social constructivism, discussion forum, self-testing, active
learning
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INTRODUCTION
Key challenges faced by undergraduate students include enrolment within a class
that may number in the hundreds and the need to assimilate and understand a contentdense curriculum delivered quickly via a finite number of face-to-face hours with the
instructor. While reports have shown that many students continue to place significant
value on traditional teacher-centered educational approaches (Ipsos, 2007; Saunders
& Gale, 2011), the instructor who provides a series of didactic lectures in front of a
student-filled amphitheatre has limited opportunity to become acquainted with
individual class members and even less chance of determining if each student is
making the desired cognitive links before key summative exams are written. As a
result, these young adult learners must assume significant responsibility for their
educational success. Instructors should share in that responsibility by facilitating selfdirected learning through the provision of virtual opportunities for collaborative
exploration and discussion as well as feedback-oriented self-assessment that students
can access outside the lecture hall (Mason & Rennie, 2008; O’Byrne, Patry &
Carnegie, 2008). While it is important to recognize that not all students display the
same level of engagement with technology (Bennett, Maton & Kervin, 2008), it is
also widely accepted that majority of today’s students have grown up immersed in the
use of internet-based applications, not only for social interactions, but also for
exploration and knowledge acquisition (Ipsos, 2007; Suchanska & Keczkowska,
2007; Saunders & Gale, 2012). This reality has led to the suggestion that the wellplanned use of e-learning can provide opportunities to enrich the educational
experiences of university undergraduates through the creation of learning
communities where students have opportunities to share ideas and apply their new
knowledge within appropriate contexts (Mason & Rennie, 2008; Saunders & Gale,
2012).
What is learning? Learning involves the reworking and reorganization of new
information as it moves from the limited confines of working memory to become
encoded and logistically integrated within our knowledge warehouse known as longterm memory (Anderson, 2000; Kirschner, 2002; Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006).
Andragogy is defined as the science of teaching adults and a key proponent of this
educational philosophy during the latter part of the 20th century was Malcolm
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Knowles (Smith, 2002). When describing adult learning, Knowles stressed the
importance of self-directed and applied learning so that by active reconstruction, the
learner can incorporate this newly acquired knowledge into a steadily changing
perception of the world.(Knowles, 1984; Pratt, 1993). Also referred to as generative
processing, these fundamental principles associated with a constructivist approach to
learning have persevered and continue to guide the development of online educational
tools in which adult learners are encouraged to select, organize and integrate new
information with that already understood and stored in long-term memory (Mayer,
2008, Mayer, 2010). There are a variety of ways in which active learning and selfassessment can be encouraged and the benefits and challenges associated with a
number of them will be explored in this chapter. As this journey unfolds, it will be
seen that key features shared by many interactive learning tools include not only
requirements for learners to use constructivism when learning, but also opportunities
to extend their knowledge to the workplace as they practice applying it within suitable
practical contexts (Michael, 2006; Mayer, 2008).
Before going further, it is important to note that an additional essential feature of
any self-directed learning tool is the provision of sufficient guidance for the learner
during completion of the exercise. When learning, students are using the limited
dimensions of working memory because only working memory is associated with
knowledge awareness (Heo & Chow, 2005). However, it is also widely recognized
that working memory can handle only a small number (four to nine) of items at a
single time, with item number inversely affected by item complexity (Miller, 1956;
Terrell, 2006). Hence, when developing interactive online learning and self-testing
tools, it is important to minimize sources of extraneous cognitive load such as
inadequate instruction, confusing procedures, or unrelated distractions because these
additional challenges associated with simply the use of the tool itself can detract from
the ability of working memory to support learning (Mayer, 2008). Reduced extrinsic
cognitive load enriches the learning experience by allowing the student to focus
purely on the intrinsic cognitive load, namely the cognitive load that is directly
associated with the concept(s) being explored, evaluated and applied (Kirschner,
2002; Heo & Chow, 2005; Mayer, 2008).
USING COURSE WEB SITE TOOLS TO PROMOTE COMMUNICATION
AND COLLABORATION
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Learning management systems (LMSs) are routinely used to provide varying
levels of support for college and university courses (Carvalho, Areal & Silva, 2011).
These range from limited student engagement, in which LMSs serve almost
exclusively as repositories of course-linked content (instructivist approach), through
increasing emphasis on student-centered constructivist learning (Moule, Ward &
Lockyer, 2010). The latter can take the form of blended curricula in which active
learning is promoted via the provision of online opportunities for bi-directional
communication, completion of assignments and self-evaluations and the receipt of
feedback, to fully-online courses where all learning, student-student and studentprofessor interaction and assessment occur within a virtual setting (Francis & Raftery,
2005; Carvalho et al., 2011). This discussion will focus on the middle option, blended
courses in which regular didactic lectures are supported by interactive course web
sites and it will begin with communication tools.
The online discussion boards included in commercially-available course website
management tools such as WebCTR, FirstClassR, BlackboardR as well as the widely
used open source LMS platform MoodleR can be used effectively to encourage
students to extend the amount of time spent interacting with course material beyond
the limited number of hours allotted to lectures (Meyer, 2003; Robb, 2004; Brandle,
2005; Marcus, 2005, Landis, Swain, Friehe & Coufal, 2007). The exploration of
course content through discussion, be it face-to-face or online, has been proposed to
deepen learning through both student engagement and promotion of the construction
of a scaffold of correctly linked concepts (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Rourke &
Anderson, 2002; Harris & Sandor, 2007, Andresen, 2009). It has also been proposed
to make students more fully aware of different aspects of a particular concept or
problem, in this way helping them to more fully appreciate the depth of knowledge
and understanding that they need to acquire (Choi, Land & Turgeon, 2005). This
social constructivist approach to learning, in which students integrate new information
in a meaningful way with what is already known, requires both collaboration and
cooperation and these activities can certainly be promoted by interactive dialogue, be
it face-to-face or within a virtual classroom (Rourke & Anderson, 2002; Sims, 2003;
Hung, Tan & Chen, 2005). Interactive discussions may also constructively promote
better understanding by requiring students to justify an explanation that they have
provided or to revisit their course notes in order to address gaps in their knowledge
and understanding (Choi et al., 2005).
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In the lecture room, face-to-face discussions can involve simultaneous back-andforth exchanges, energy, and spontaneity of thinking. Hence they work well for inclass activities such as brainstorming, visual demonstrations, or heated debates
regarding a controversial topic (Cantillon, 2003; Meyer, 2003). Furthermore, studies
have shown that the promotion of small-group discussion within large undergraduate
classes of students studying physiology and chemistry resulted in a more thorough
understanding of course content and better student outcomes (Kibble, Hansen &
Nelson, 2006; Lewis & Lewis, 2008). But can the same goals be achieved with virtual
discussions and are there additional advantages to the use of online approaches to
promote inter-student communication?
Zha and Ottendorfer (2011) quantitatively compared the acquisition of lowerorder and higher-order cognitive skills by students participating in online,
asynchronous, immunology-related discussions and found positive correlation
between cognitive achievement in online discussions and subsequent course learning
assessment scores. One important advantage associated with threaded discussions is
that they may support higher-order thinking because their very asynchronicity
combined with the existence of a visual record of the conversation permits time for
reflection and even integration of related concepts before a student posts a comment
(Meyer, 2003; Jin, 2005; Dixson, Kuhlhorst & Reiff, 2006; Andresen, 2009). Indeed,
the construction of a written answer to explain a concept or justify a line of reasoning
promotes the linking of related pieces of information by the learner and this process
can lead to a more thorough understanding of that content (Oliver & Naidu, 1996;
Choi et al., 2005). In comparison with other types of online interactions, such as chat
rooms, it should be noted that discussion boards are likely a better alternative for busy
students. Their asynchronous nature results in the creation of an enduring physical
record of the conversation, in this way allowing students to communicate with one
another without needing to be online at the same time (Dixson et al., 2006).
Survey data has revealed that, while students found online discussions to be more
time-consuming than oral discussions occurring during class, they felt that this time
was well spent in working more extensively with course objectives and in putting
additional thought into the answers they were developing (Meyer, 2003; Shea,
Frederickson, Pickett & Pelz, 2004). Indeed, an in-depth exploration of university
student perceptions identified online discussions as one of the most valued
components of e-learning due to its ability to promote participation and collaboration
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(Selim, 2005). Additional advantages associated with online discussion boards
include a greater likelihood that more timid students will be able to enhance their
learning experiences by having the courage to get involved in the discussion and that
each student, regardless of his or her ability to quickly process information and
construct a reply, will be able to fully express an idea without being interrupted by an
enthusiastic colleague (Meyer, 2003; Jin, 2005; Dixson et al., 2006, Andresen, 2009).
The discussion board also allows the instructor to take the time to more fully
appreciate the thoughts and information being presented by students and to assess
each student’s level of understanding of course concepts (Marcus, 2005).
Many students are strategic learners and, therefore, will not be inclined to use an
online tool simply because it exists. Rather, they will make use of a tool if they can
see that it links to course objectives and has the potential to improve assessment
outcomes (Saunders & Gale, 2012). With that in mind, topic-specific folders should
be used judiciously to structure the discussion forum so that students can navigate it
easily in order to access relevant postings by their peers and to submit their own
contributions. Participation can be encouraged by using some in-class time to raise
awareness of the forum and explain its relevance to course learning objectives. As an
example of a very basic application, students can readily appreciate curriculumrelated benefits of the forum if it is used to provide a risk-free environment where
they can post questions regarding content that was incompletely understood during
lectures in folders that have been assigned to those topics. Answers to these questions
can be provided a single time for all students (rather than multiple times via private
emails to individual learners), saving valuable time for the instructor and facilitating
more widespread dissemination of explanatory information to students. This chapter
author found that the discussion forum had an additional unexpected benefit of
allowing exceptional peer tutors to be discovered as a consequence their enthusiastic
participation in forum discussions.
Interactivity can be classified as learner-content, learner-instructor, and learnerlearner (Moore, 1989). These are by no means distinct interactions. They are
interdependent and, indeed, all three can be promoted in various ways using
discussion boards (Swan, 2002). With regard to learner-learner interactivity when
exploring course content, peer-led discussion groups have been widely used to
facilitate online collaboration when working on assignments (e.g., Rourke &
Anderson, 2002; Harris & Sandor, 2007; Zha et al., 2011; Carnegie, 2012). Students
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can be randomly sorted into discussion groups using forum tools and optimal
discussion has been proposed to occur if group sizes are no larger than seven
(McComb, 1994). Within each group the role of peer leader can also be assigned
either randomly or via peer-selection. Peer leaders are responsible for initiating and
moderating the virtual discussion, editing and critiquing student contributions and
posting the final submission of their group to the rest of the class (Rourke &
Anderson, 2002; Harris & Sandor, 2007; Zha et al., 2011; Carnegie, 2012). The other
group members (responders) are also key participants in this process. They contribute
postings to the online discussion and actively learn through their interactions with
other respondents as well as from feedback provided by the group leader (Rourke &
Anderson, 2002; Ferrante, Green and Forster, 2006; Kibble et al., 2006; Lewis &
Lewis, 2008). In this approach, private discussion folders can used to restrict access to
only the members of a specific group (and the instructor) while ideas are exchanged
and the answer constructed and refined. The team leader can then share the final
posting via a second folder, a public folder, to which all class members and the
instructor have access (Carnegie, 2012). The use of peer-learning has been reported to
promote student engagement and improve students’ overall course satisfaction (Jiang
& Ting, 2000; Jin, 2005). The results of one study revealed that while students, in
general, were reluctant to assume the higher demands associated with peer leadership,
they found that the added responsibility and time commitment provided them with a
superior learning experience (Zha & Ottendorfer, 2011). This observation led the
authors to emphasize the importance of distributing the role of peer leader among all
students whenever possible.
ONLINE SELF-ASSESSMENT
LMS software often contains self-testing tools as part of the package. The creation
of course-specific self-assessment exercises using these tools provides opportunities
for students to not only evaluate their progress in learning but also to obtain
instantaneous explanatory feedback when an incorrect answer is selected. For
example, the self-test assessment feature of Blackboard allows multiple-choice
questions to be constructed with an unlimited number of answer choices, a single
accurate answer or multiple correct choices, and immediate educational feedback for
every answer at the moment that particular response is selected by a student.
Similarly, Moodle supports the establishment of test banks that can then be used to
73
generate quizzes that are composed of a variety of question types, can be timed, allow
multiple possible correct answers per question, permit multiple possible tries per
question and per assessment exercise, and include the option to give question-byquestion feedback to students (Robb, 2004; Brandl, 2005; Martin-Blas & SerranoFernandez, 2009; Yasar & Adiguzel, 2010). Such exercises can be tremendously
helpful to students because they address three key items of Robert Gagné’s Nine
Events of Instruction (Gagné, Briggs & Wager, 1992). The Nine Events describe a
series of processes that should take place in order for effective learning to occur and,
while this list was published some time ago, it continues to influence instructional
design because it address basic principles such as the need to engage and motivate
learners, to guide them to make links with what is already known, to provide
feedback, and to enhance retention and transfer (Kinzie, 2005; O’Byrne et al., 2008).
With regard to online self-assessment, the creation of feedback-oriented self-testing
exercises offers opportunities for students to practise applying what they have learned
(event six), to obtain immediate feedback so that they can correct errors in their
knowledge or reasoning (event seven), and have their performance assessed
(formative exam scores give students a measurement of their mastery of course
content; event eight). Textbook publishers are increasingly offering similar types of
flexible, online self-testing tools as part of their textbook packages. The creation of
course-specific regular assignments for students using these tools has been shown to
improve student outcomes by encouraging them to interact regularly with course
material, to improve their understanding of course content by making use of the
instructional feedback, and to identify areas of weakness that would benefit from
additional study before they tackle summative examinations (Carnegie, 2011).
The flexibility of Moodle lends itself well to the support of exercises developed
using other software packages as well as alternative types of assessment-based elearning. For example, the freeware Hot PotatoesR (http://www.hotpot.uvic.ca/),
developed by Half-Baked Software Inc., has been widely used to develop interactive
exercises such as quizzes, crossword puzzles and matching and ordering activities
(Robb, 2004; Ward, 2004; Caric, Tuba & Moisil, 2010). The creation of a module
(HotPot) for Moodle has made it possible for these exercises to be fully integrated
into a Moodle-supported class web site by allowing student scores to be tracked when
they complete these exercises (Robb, 2004). Another valuable component of Moodle
that supports the constructivist vision of learning as an ongoing process is its
74
Workshop module (Brandl, 2005; Robertson, 2008). Here, students can assess written
work submitted by their peers while they, themselves, are evaluated as to the quality
of the peer assessments they are providing. Finally, QuandaryR is an action-maze
software also produced by Half-Baked Software Inc. that can be used to promote
learning and self-assessment in a variety of ways (Holmes & Arneil, 2009). It can
assume a story-telling function as students make selections that help them learn about
important figures and events in history (Field, 2009), or it can provide medical
students with much-needed practice for bell-ringer anatomy exams or with the
development of their clinical decision-making skills (Carnegie, Iafolla &
Weinstangel, 2010). This author has even used Quandary to construct exercises that
help students hone their writing abilities as they construct answers to short essay-style
questions.
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERACTIVE E-LEARNING MODULE CONTENT
An important advantage associated with e-learning is the ability to use additional
presentation modes, such as animations and videos, in order to address alternative
modalities of learning (Moreno & Mayer, 2000; Mayer & Moreno, 2003; Mayer,
2008). Animations are particularly useful for allowing students to visualize an
interdependent sequence of events whether they are studying history, biology, or
mathematics. Compared to static diagrams, animations can reduce the intrinsic
cognitive load for students by allowing them to see the flow of steps that compose a
process and the way in which one step leads to the next, rather than requiring them to
exhaust the limited capacity of working memory to mentally picture that sequence of
events, fill in the visual information gaps and create the linkages for themselves
(Lowe, 2001; Ruffini, 2009). PowerPointR, a presentation software already widely
used by instructors for lecture delivery, has a number of features that lend themselves
well to the development of simple instructional animations (de Wer, 2006; Carnegie,
Leddy, De Jesus, De Jesus & Crawford, 2008; Ruffini, 2009). For example, the four
images shown in Figure 1 are screen shots selected from a short PowerPoint learning
module that animates the process of dehydration synthesis. Students are able to see
the two monosaccharides approach each other, following which the removal of a
molecule of water links them via the formation of a glycoside bond, producing a
disaccharide.
75
Figure 1. Selected images from a PowerPoint-created animation illustrating the process of
dehydration synthesis.
Animations can also appeal to student learning styles that may not be addressed
strongly during lectures (O’Byrne et al., 2008). The VARK system categorizes learner
preferences as visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic (Fleming & Mills, 1992;
Fleming & Bonwell, 2001). Studies looking at student populations with reference to
medicine and related health sciences have shown undergraduate classes to be
composed of heterogeneous populations of students employing various combinations
of these four strategies as they learn (Baykan & Nicar, 2007; Slater, Lujan & Dicarlo,
2007; Carnegie, 2008). Hence, while lectures are often most useful for aural and
read/write learners, access to online animations to support course content can be
especially useful for visual learners. Furthermore, animations that can be manipulated
by the student have an added value for kinesthetic learners. For all students, the
option to replay an animation multiple times as it is contained within an online
learning module, rather than being shown it only a single time during lecture, affords
the opportunity to tackle the information a bit at a time, in manageable chunks, so that
a synthesis of the entire process can eventually be accomplished (Lowe, 2001).
However, animations should be used carefully and with thorough planning, to
ensure that they are constructed in such a way that they address curriculum learning
objectives and that student attention is being directed toward those elements of the
animation that will contribute most to their learning (Lowe, 2000, 2001). Graphics
should be kept as simple and direct as possible, including only those elements that
have educational value (Lowe, 2001). Dynamic arrows and highlighting can be used
judiciously to cue learner attention to the most important aspects of an animation so
as to maximize effectiveness (Mayer, 2008). That said, these visual enhancements
should be used sparingly, so as not to be distracting and contribute to extraneous
76
cognitive load (Mayer & Moreno, 2003; de Wer, 2006). Extraneous cognitive load
represents the extra mental processing required in response to the manner of
presentation of the information and, if excessive, can detract from the quality of the
message itself (Sweller, van Merrienboer & Paas, 1998). Another strategy to reduce
cognitive load when presenting a complex series of events is to combine audio with
the animation so that two modalities can be used simultaneously to process the
information (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). According to the split attention principle, the
auditory and visual pathways of the brain use different short-tem memory systems to
receive, organize and finally integrate new information into long-term memory
(Moreno & Mayer, 2000). Hence, the use of both neural systems simultaneously by
having an instructive animation accompanied by a verbal explanation frees up a larger
volume of short term memory during learning and allows the various aspects of an
intricate process to be more easily assimilated and understood by the student (Mayer
& Moreno, 2003; Mayer, 2008).
MOBILE LEARNING
Mobile learning (m-learning) is an extension of e-learning that has the added
advantage of allowing students to access their course content while on the move using
hand-held devices such as an iPod, an iPad or a smartphone (Evans, 2008). The
content is presented in the form of audio podcasts, with or without accompanying
video, that are “pushed” to the feed’s subscribers making them easily available to all
learners who subscribe to that feed (Evans, 2008; Jalali, Leddy, Gauthier, Sun, Hincke
& Carnegie, 2011). This level of accessibility allows busy students to extend their
study time and location to include the bus or train during the daily commute to and
from school or even the gym when exercising on a treadmill or stationary bicycle. It is
also important to realize that, while the maximal advantage of podcasts derives from
their ability to be used with mobile devices, they can also be downloaded onto
computers, allowing student access to be almost universal and not dependent on one’s
ability to afford a portable device (Evans, 2008).
Podcasts have been used to provide concise lecture reviews, to help clarify content
covered during lectures, to provide problem solving examples, and to allow efficient
revision of course content when students are preparing for exams (Berger, 2007;
Evans, 2008; Jalali et al., 2011). Students can listen to an entire podcast from start to
finish or select certain components for multiple listening as they grapple with the
77
more challenging concepts in that lecture (Maag, 2006). Survey data from
undergraduate business students indicated a preferred length of five to fifteen minutes
per podcast with very few respondents indicating that they would listen to a podcast
of longer than twenty minutes duration (Frydenberg, 2006). One concern raised
repeatedly by instructors is that the convenience of podcasts might encourage students
to use them as a replacement for rather than a supplement to lecture attendance,
leading them to be increasingly learning in isolation rather than being actively
engaged in the social constructivist learning that can occur within the classroom
(Jham, Duraes, Strassler & Sensi, 2008). A recent review shows that the question of
whether or not access to recorded lectures has a negative impact on class attendance
continues to be controversial and that the answer likely depends to some extent on
whether it is the entire lecture or an abbreviated summary that is being made available
as a podcast. While a number of studies have demonstrated no impact of podcasts on
class attendance, the results of other studies have suggested a link between online
availability of lecture podcasts and reduced turnout to class (reviewed by Jalali et al.,
2011). The relatively short podcast duration preferred by students suggests that this
medium is likely better used for the provision of concise reviews or to amplify a
single concept, rather than to serve as an alternative means of accessing a lecture in its
entirety.
STUDENTS ARE AN INVALUABLE RESOURCE
While instructors certainly have significant insight into curriculum content and
those aspects of a course that have the potential to be conceptually more challenging,
their students must also be recognized as important sources of information regarding
what they had difficulty learning and as valuable resources who can contribute
creative ideas and alternative perspectives to the development of student-friendly
online learning tools. Students may facilitate the construction of engaging learning
tools by having supportive computer expertise that is not shared by the instructor (e.g.
the use of Adobe FlashR to create interactive animations; O’Byrne et al., 2008).
Furthermore, undergraduate students who have just completed a course are well
placed to identify those concepts that they found most troublesome so that the time
spent developing online learning and self-testing tools is used effectively. Students
may also be more inclined to try a risky or innovative idea and may be better able to
78
script a scenario to which their peers can relate when applying their new knowledge
in context.
Student involvement can be promoted by the institution itself. For example, the
University of Ottawa has recently established an Undergraduate Research
Opportunity Program (UROP) that links interested students with faculty sponsors and
provides financial support for single-term research projects. During the past year, this
program has allowed the author to supervise students who have just completed
courses in anatomy and physiology as they develop videos and interactive exercises
that engage student interest, illustrate body structure and physiological concepts more
clearly, provide practice in application, and promote learning for subsequent sessions
of those same courses (Carnegie & Stokes, 2012).
There is one additional way in which students can provide valuable assistance
with the development of learning tools and that is to provide feedback to the
instructor as to the actual ability of that tool to engage their interest, challenge their
reasoning, and contribute positively to their learning experience (Martin-Blas &
Serrano-Fernandez, 2008; Moule et al., 2010; Carvalho et al., 2011). Concise survey
forms with Likert-based questions can easily be developed and distributed to students
in order to obtain anonymous and quantitative data as to the ease of use of the
learning tool, its ability to engage interest and facilitate comprehension and the ways
in which it promoted learning success. The inclusion of some open-ended questions in
the survey can allow the instructor to identify and correct any weaknesses in the
learning tool and also to be made cognizant of any other challenging aspects of the
curriculum for which students would welcome the support of a learning module.
CONCLUSION
Technology can be used effectively and easily to create engaging learning
opportunities beyond the classroom. LMSs support social constructivism through
communication tools such as discussion forums that permit interactive exploration of
course content and peer-led completion of assignments and peer-assessment. Various
forms of e-assessment engage learners by allowing them to monitor their progress in
learning, to engage more actively with course content, and to practice applying new
knowledge in appropriate contexts. Mobile learning continues to expand the
dimensions of the classroom in ways never imagined even a few years ago. Students
can be an excellent resource for both the development and for the subsequent
79
evaluation of online learning and self-testing modules. Constant advances in
technology will continue to provide new ways to support e-learning. The challenge
will be to select those methodologies that will be effective because they align well
with the ways in which students learn.
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Chapter Five
A Design Framework for Enhancing On-Line Learning
Wendy Fasso, Central Queensland University, Australia
Cecily Knight, James Cook University, Australia
Bruce Allen Knight, Central Queensland University, Australia
ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a holistic online course design framework that is drawn from
theory and empirical research-based principles. This framework is aimed at ensuring
pedagogical consistency in course design at higher education level and facilitation
that maximises the potential of contemporary technology for student learning. It is
organised into complementary and often overlapping principles about learning that
are drawn from published research. The principles discussed in this chapter include:
learning occurring within a community of practice; learning is learner-centred;
learning is flexible and based on individual needs; learning is resource-based, and
technology-mediated; learning is both individual, and networked; learning is
demonstrated when new, and valued knowledge is created; learning is cognitive,
affective, social and sensory-motor; learning is best supported through constructive
alignment of assessment, curriculum and pedagogy; and learning is best when
activities are purposeful and aligned with assessment.
KEY WORDS – online learning; learning design, higher education; pedagogy
THE CONTEXT
Over the past decade, e-learning has been successfully integrated into learning
and teaching in universities to support and enhance traditional teaching methods
(Laurillard, 2006). However, the uses of the opportunities offered by technology are
not as widely used to support active collaboration, role-play, modelling, creativity,
and connectedness to worlds beyond the university (Davidson & Goldberg, 2012).
These technologies offer a multitude of opportunities to extend and transform
pedagogy and learning, nonetheless, as late as 2010, the claim is still made that higher
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education practice continues to be isolated from the growing evidence base about
contemporary practice and good learning (Goodyear & Ellis, 2010). Rather than
transform teaching practice, lecturers appear to be appropriating those technologies
based on ease of incorporation into existing teaching activity rather than those which
radically change teaching and learning practices (Kirkup & Kirkwood, 2005). Such
practices, however, are understandable if the staff member is a novice regarding
teaching with technology but at the same time an experienced teacher. Working in
this learning community involves an examination of the broader organisational
context in which the teaching and learning takes place.
Much of the literature covering online learning reports the perspectives of
organisation, the role of the course designer and tutor, or the uptake of the technology
itself (e.g. Sharpe, Beetham, de Freitas & Conole, 2010), with significantly less focus
on the development of research-supported online pedagogies appropriate for student
learning.
Yet already, much of higher education contemporary face-to-face practice
includes a variety of media, and has been informed by practices emerging from
distance education courses (Kirkup & Kirkwood, 2005). The way we design for
interactivity, active learning, support and administration are now, for the most part,
achieved using Information Communication Technology (ICT) and digital media
(Kirkup & Kirkwood, 2005; Salmon, 2002). Beyond this, lecturers have identified
changes to their face to face pedagogy, based on their online teaching experiences,
that includes strategies to support greater diversity, student engagement, and studentcentred facilitative approaches to teaching and learning (Duncan & Young, 2009).
A whole curriculum pedagogical approach is needed for the integration of
technologies into learning and teaching if we are to avoid what Goodyear and Ellis
(2010) refer to as the ‘bolt-on effect’ (p. 103). This may occur when teachers reflect
on information delivery rather than the development of students’ understanding, with
poor conceptions of the transformative affordances of ICT used to support teaching
and learning. What is needed is an integration of technologies into teaching so that it
becomes part of individual practice (Gosper, nd).
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A complete curriculum approach to designing online learning promises also to
support the needs of students enrolled in internal mode, who expect to experience the
same online interactions that are available to students enrolled in external mode
(Horsley, Knight & Huntly, 2010). By adding an online component, lecturers have
identified providing a ‘voice’ to less vocal, and more reflective students (Duncan &
Young, 2009). Indeed, the modality of the synchronous tutorial may be the only
element that differs between internal and distance learning. Students have indicated
that technology allows them the flexibility to choose not only when and where to
access content and interactive experiences, but also when and where to access lectures
(Gosper, nd). Raised as a common problem in the literature (e.g. Arenas, 2008;
Bates, 2011; McNeill & Gosper, 2010), many students no longer attend face to face
lectures regularly, which brings into question the role of the traditional lecture, as well
as the assumptions that internal students are always on campus (Woo, Gosper,
McNeill, Preston, Green, & Phillips , 2008). This is not just an Australian issue as this
issue is also experienced in countries such as the United States and Britain
(Massingham & Herrington, 2006). Universities must demonstrate sensitivity to
student needs for flexibility, with quality online learning designs (Barnes & Tynan,
2007). This prompts a necessary inspection of the way in which on-line courses are
framed and designed.
LEARNING OCCURS IN A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
Within the learning community, the facilitating role of the lecturer is critical. The
lecturer frames the disciplinary ways of thinking through good learning design that
immerses learners in practice. The role of the lecturer moves from the source of
knowledge, to a facilitator of new knowledge building within the learning community
(de Freitas & Conole, 2010). Furthermore, a skilled teacher overcomes a traditional
view of individual learning and supports collaborative and socially mediated modes of
learning using associated pedagogies (de Freitas & Conole, 2010). They support the
creation of a disciplinary lens through which learners see meanings that are
appropriated from a community of practice, leading to the formation of an identity
within that community (Hung & Chen, 2001). From Lave and Wenger’s (1991)
perspective, the identity is analysed as being embedded in the learning context where
individuals all contribute. The role of the teacher then, is to structure the learning
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environment so that members are “fully engaged in the process of creating, refining,
communicating and using knowledge” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p.111).
Within the community of learners, dialogue is critical, with language used as a
scaffold to support the development of individual identities and relationships within
the community’s collective activities. Through this, learners interpret, , apply, act on
feedback, and reflect on their learning (Laurillard, 2002). This conversational
approach to learning has been shown to improve student learning and enhance student
outcomes (Bower, Hedberg & Kuswara, 2009). Students receive instruction and
resources that are capable of being individualised, and accommodate their learning
needs as they actively contribute to the relationships they establish with their peers in
the community of learners (Hung & Chen, 2001). Feedback is critical, and within the
learning community, technologies provide opportunities for lecturer support as well as
other community support from peers (Creanor & Trinder, 2010).
LEARNING IS LEARNER CENTRED

The role of the lecturer is to scaffold, model and support learning

The role of the learner is to construct an individual and contextual
knowledge of the discipline
Wrede (2003) emphasises that lecturers need to design curricula that encourage
students’ independence, creativity and networking skills. . The institution and its
resources are no longer the sole source of learning for students, whose informal
learning and social communication has been transformed by technology (Davidson &
Goldberg, 2012). They have access to ubiquitous and mobile technologies, interactive
social networking software, all sculpted and customized to suit the individual. The
pace of change is accelerating, and higher education is struggling to keep pace with
change. More importantly, the change in technologies and their affordances should be
transforming pedagogies associated with the mobile, personal web (Johnson, Levine,
& Smith, 2009).
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There is a shift in terms of the tools used and artefacts produced towards more
participatory and communicative uses (de Freitas and Conole, 2010). Associated with
this shift is an implicit challenge to the traditional and authoritative ownership of
knowledge by academics. Learners are not only able to access information from a
variety of sources, they are also emerging as creators of digital artefacts, including
text, audio and multimedia, thus blurring the boundaries between users and creators
(Luckin Logan, Clark, Graber, Oliver & Mee
, 2008).Open source materials are freely available, such as those offered by
Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, and learners are able to take a position
of empowerment in critiquing the educational institution and its unique role in their
formal learning (Seely Brown & Adler, 2008). Many learners enter higher education
with significant prior learning and expertise, and are able to contribute to learning if
supported (Ryberg & Dirckinck-Holmfield, 2010). Thus, the affordances of the web
are making learner-centred education a reality, with tools that enable collaborative
creation of text, and media; and social networking capable of supporting multiple
communities of learning (McLoughlin & Lee, 2011).
For students who welcome presentation and didactic pedagogy, the
affordances of ICT are not being currently used to increase expectations and reduce
the existing power relationships in learning (Czerniewicz & Brown, 2010). The
implication for online learning design is that where feasible, learners should be
empowered to participate in individually determined ways, with guidance and
scaffolded support created and maintained by the lecturer. Empowered self-directed
learning encourages students to determine goals, identify appropriate resources and
evaluate outcomes.
LEARNING IS FLEXIBLE AND BASED ON INDIVIDUAL NEEDS

Learners come to a course with individual skill-sets and experiences.
The learning of those less prepared should be highly scaffolded, whilst
opportunities are provided for the growth of the best prepared

Resources and tools provided should cater to individual needs
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Not all individuals have similar requirements when participating in an online course
(Davidson & Goldberg, 2012), with some indicating a preference for working in
isolation and independently while others are highly dependent on interaction and
support. Meeting individual needs to ensure that learners gain the knowledge and
skills to enable full participation in the learning community is a core consideration
when designing courses and online activities.
Online learners indicate a preference for a range of media which present
information in different ways and thus maintain their motivation (Davidson &
Goldberg, 2012). They also value the provision of a range of optional resources to
extend their learning (Armatas, Holt & Rice, 2003). Learners have been found to use
a wide range of self-selected ICT tools, with boundaries between formal and informal
learning blurred (de Freitas & Conole, 2010). A course design that maximises the
potential of learner-selected tools will support individualisation and flexibility. Much
of learning behaviour is unseen, including that which is transacted in individually
generated and flexible learner networks (Creanor & Trinder, 2010).
Reliance on a single selected set of tools, such as discussion forums for learners can
emphasize inequities. In response to this, learners may elect to go ‘underground’
(Creanor & Trinder, 2010) . Whilst the discussion forum has been, from its
inceptions as an online collaboration tool, designed to support the construction of
personal meaning through collaboration (Bates, 1995), the evolution of new online
collaboration tools such as wikis and blogs has not widely resulted in their use in
higher education. Messages contributed early in the thread are accessed widely,
however learners who reflect, and then contribute later based on individual context,
learning preference and prior knowledge are not responded to as frequently (Stodel,
Thompson & MacDonald , 2006; Thomas, 2002), leading to inequitable opportunities
for collaboration. Whilst forums evolved over time, a large number of student
messages terminated branches as the contributions become more disjointed and
fragmented with the sense of “monologue vs. monologue” (Thomas, 2002, p. 361).
However, forums were valued by a number of participants in the Thomas (2002)
study, and have been found to increase critical thinking and interactive dialogue.
Furthermore, the nature of discourse in forums potentially disadvantages some
learners, with written forms of communication not necessarily being the medium of
communication that is preferred by all (Stodel, et al., 2006; Thomas, 2002). Greater
92
attention is needed when designing collaborative activities in courses, with attention
to the collaboration tools, individual needs, and timing being critical in providing
genuine flexibility for individual learners. The shift to openness from private systems
(for instance moving beyond the confines of a Learning Management System LMS
into web-based tools) will support greater engagement from non-participating or
silent learners (de Freitas & Conole, 2010).
It is important to recognise that learners can contribute their own expertise to
teaching and learning (Beetham & Oliver, 2010). The nature of tasks and assessment
to meet individual needs should also be scrutinised. Students will not respond to
collaborative work if it is not relevant, or if there is the potential for inequitable
contribution (Duncan & Young, 2009). Whilst some students are ready to participate
in establishing discussion threads in forums, many participate only in the closing
stages of the course, and only when this is linked to assessment (Thomas, 2002).
The course must be structured to balance the goal of learner centeredness and
learner responsibility. While holding students accountable to, and enforcing deadlines
is important, flexibility is necessary within those deadlines to allow for life events.
For many learners, online learning can be isolating, and setbacks can lead to attrition
(Duncan & Young, 2009). Support for all learner needs is critical, and adjustments by
teachers to accommodate the flexibility needs of learners are important.
LEARNING IS RESOURCE BASED, AND TECHNOLOGY MEDIATED

Resources and technologies should be designed and selected based on
identified learning outcomes

Resources and technologies should be designed and selected based on
learner needs and preferences
Technology is changing the face of online education. Blogs, podcasts, wikis, emails,
web conferencing and online discussion allow students to extend the classroom into
the workplace and other authentic contexts to extend learning beyond the traditional
classroom and into the broader community (Boulos, Maramba, & Wheeler, 2006;
Hemmi, Bayne, & Land, 2009; Laurillard, 2007). For most students this is reflective
93
of existing social networking practice, in which they already collaborate, search for
information, communicate and socialise using web technologies as part of their
everyday lives. Although not homogenous across any group, parallel to their use of
institutional technology is the use of learner-selected technologies, which often
overlap with their social technology use (Conole, de Laat, Dillon, & Darby, 2007;
Kennedy, Judd, Churchward, Gray, & Krause, 2008). However caution is advised if
assuming that all learners translate social into learning practice, or that any use of
social software is linked to age (Sharpe & Beetham, 2010). The prototypical
perceptions of the digitally-savvy net generation (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005) should
be balanced with perceptions of the digital divide.
Already identified in the previous section is the importance of planning learning
to support student needs and offer flexibility. Laurillard (2007), in her foreword to
“Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age”, identifies the capacity of ICT to cater to
most of learner needs, extending even beyond what is manageable in a face-to-face
context. However, the selection of technologies must be planned and pedagogically
intentional to maximise their potential.
Increasing the scope for innovative use of Web 2.0 , typified by generating
content, distribution and networking requires an institutional environment that
encourages exploration and risk taking, with decisions best made in a whole-program
context (Bates, 2011). In this way a shift in learning, beyond traditional, hierarchical
structures will lead learners to distribute learning across a range of resources and
collaborative groups (de Freitas & Conole, 2010).
When selecting technologies and creating resources, consideration should be
given to the ways in which not only cognitive, but also social and teaching presences
can be created online. Opportunities for dialogue are critical to enhance socially
mediated learning. The permanency of online participation through text, audio or
video allows greater access by others to the learning of all in an individualised
learning environment (Valjataga & Fiedler, 2008). Many teachers and students may
still prefer face-to-face contact, and this is well supported by audio/video-links with
students in a group setting (Kirkup & Kirkwood, 2005). In the distance situation, this
elevates the importance of web-conferencing tools and reconceptualises how they are
used. Consideration should also be taken of the increase in mobile technology use for
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communication. Other technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, audio and
videoconferencing, interactive simulations are all identified as high end use of ICT,
which increase intellectual exchange and interactivity, and are conducive to higher
order thinking and active learning within a flexible environment (Mason & Rennie,
2008).
A stronger pedagogical focus on online learning design will support and guide
students in learning how to manage tools and services to mediate learning tasks
(Bates, 2011). This, of course, includes learners’ participating as creators of content.
As independent learners, developing expertise in selecting and integrating a diverse
range of tools supports independent and individualised learning (Valtajaga, Pata, &
Tammets, 2011). Particularly in higher education, personal control over the
technological environment that mediates work and study activities is increasingly
important (Valjataga & Fiedler, 2008).
Course design should forefront digital literacy within the learning materials,
and in the demonstrations of student knowledge through assessment. In the
commercial, political, educational and social environments of contemporary society,
screen-based communication has in most areas replaced paper-based communication
(Beetham & Oliver, 2010). When presenting course materials to learners, it should be
acknowledged that the ability to decode images and video are increasingly essential
literacies and should be supported (Beetham & Oliver, 2010). It is important to
scrutinise the profession we are preparing learners for, and identify the modes of
communication that will be valued in that professional field. In the case of education,
this multimodal communication capacity is valued and commonly used (Goodyear &
Ellis, 2010).
The support of learners and consideration of their needs is critical. From the
learner’s perspective, the uptake of technology for learning is influenced by a range of
contributing factors (de Freitas & Conole, 2010). These factors include the skill of the
learner as a critical filter of information, personal preference and individual ways of
working, the nature of the subject matter, and the technical skill and confidence of the
learner. Also included are issues such as adequate network access, and ownership of
computers that are able to access course materials and online technologies effectively.
95
For many, new definitions of functional access include mobile access, and access to
networks of people as well as resources (Sharpe & Beetham, 2010). Mobile phone
ownership changes the terms of “access, connectivity, learning environment,
temporality and locatedness” (Czerniewicz & Brown, 2010, p 149), emerging as the
most frequently used technology for peer-to-peer communication and collaboration
(Benfield & De Laat, 2010) . For instance, despite advice to stay on discussion
forums, high proportions of learners prefer to resort to synchronous communication
with each other, for instance with mobile phones (Benfield & De Laat, 2010).
Being institutionally locked into a LMS such as Moodle or Blackboard may
limit the flexibility of technology use and potential pedagogy, making the shift to
transformed pedagogy difficult (Barnes & Tynan, 2007; Kirkup & Kirkwood, 2005).
Although there are administrative advantages and controls, the use of a LMS does not
empower learners in the way Web 2.0 can (Bates, 2011). The LMS is powerful in
providing opportunities to organize resources, guidelines, procedures and deadlines
for students. However, the utilization of Web 2.0 tools for data collection, access to
open content and experts, and the co-creation and sharing of media rich assignments
and materials extends learning beyond that which can be supported in a LMS (Bates,
2011). This level of co-production and sharing can lead to a new learner identity
online as both a consumer and a producer of knowledge (McLoughlin & Lee, 2011).
Thus, whilst learners operate within a LMS that is populated with teachergenerated content, we continue to maintain practices that are no longer congruent with
Web developments and their learning affordances. The Web offers tools and
affordances that support student-centred pedagogies, with a shift towards and
emphasis on students’ ideas, publications, research and interpretations online.
LEARNING IS BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND NETWORKED

Learners require individualised and self-managed spaces within which
to learn. Within these spaces, they control the locus of information –
both human and non-human

Sharing of the learning process allows other learners the opportunity
for vicarious learning.
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Institutionalized learning environments are structured mainly around content and
driven by the needs of the institution rather than individual students. Furthermore,
they represent a typical, application-centred approach that only allows for the
performance of a particular, predefined set of activities within closed and rather static
systems (Arenas, 2008) .
Such environments are centrally controlled and managed by the facilitator,
who defines the learning objectives, tasks, media, and expected outcomes. The
facilitator has limited possibilities to adapt to student preferences for tools that
support their personal study aims. Therefore student preferences and prior knowledge
are difficult to accommodate. Because a LMS is usually only available to students
enrolled in a given course, the opportunity to interact with the outside world is limited
as identified in the previous section. Also identified, was the value of distributed
environments to enable conversations on subject matter (terminology, concepts),
processes (distribution of work, roles, media), and execution (Fiedler & Pata, 2009).
Web 2.0 technologies allow students to create and share their own personal learning
environments, shifting power from teachers to students. However, this does not mean
that the LMS is not necessary as scaffolding and learner support are still needed,
including the provision of content, models and guidance (Bates, 2011). .
When lecturers encourage the use of a range of collaboration tools, students can
personalise the ways in which they interact in the learning community. Any well
designed course should acknowledge the input of students in configuring not only
their own learning relationships, but also their own learning spaces with self-selected
mediating technologies ( Goodyear & Ellis, 2010) . In this way, contemporary
learning theory and socially situated learning is enacted and modelled in the valuing
of learning relationships, the development of autonomous learners with metacognition
and self-regulation (Goodyear & Ellis, 2010; McLoughlin & Lee, 2011). Web 2.0
tools empower the end-user to create, disseminate and share information freely.
Generally controls are imposed by the users themselves – the democratization of the
web - which empowers learners, and supports formation of networks (Bates, 2011).
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LEARNING IS DEMONSTRATED WHEN NEW, AND VALUED
KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED

Depending on the discipline, design decisions and assessment should
be based on the opportunities for learners to contribute to the
disciplinary knowledge base
The participatory nature of the web allows learners to shift away from authoritative
teacher sources, and towards content generated by the former. In a period of rapid
change, knowledge is no longer controlled and stable, and remains open to renewed
interpretation, review, and modification by learners, with dissemination of new
learning to the community of learners (McLoughlin & Lee, 2011). In this way,
learners become producers of knowledge alongside the teacher, with multi-directional
learning enabled (de Freitas & Conole, 2010). With this shift, there is a clear
requirement that assessment and learning activity be reviewed, with sufficient
scaffolding to enhance independent thinking, and spaces to support collaborative and
reflective construction of knowledge ( Goodyear & Ellis, 2010).
Goodyear and Ellis (2010) identify issues in online discussions whereby
learners rely on the teacher to know the right or wrong answer, requiring ongoing
maintenance of discussions by the teacher to check and validate students’ ideas. This
supports the idea that learning is about being able to replicate the knowledge of the
teacher. The outcome of this type of discussion may involve large amounts of time
spent by the teacher in discussion forums, without which students will view forums as
being a waste of time (Goodyear & Ellis, 2010). Where the educational design can
encourage a shift from ‘teacher knows all’ to learners identifying that all ideas are
open to improvement, meaningful contributions by learners to the knowledge base
can occur and genuine knowledge building take place.
A learning design encouraging students to actively contribute to a course
should retain open-endedness, interactivity and focussed feedback, strongly
reinforcing learners’ expectations of collaborative extending of knowledge (Goodyear
& Ellis, 2010). Learners should note that “linearity, narrow problem solving and
bounded approaches to learning where knowledge is managed and patrolled by staff is
likely to be inappropriate for learning at the university in the twenty first century”
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(Savin-Baden, 2008, p.154). In this way, student expectations of didactic teachercontrolled learning are challenged. Furthermore, if we wish to demonstrate that
learners have made a valued contribution to the body of disciplinary knowledge, their
input should be sufficiently valued by articulating it into new cohorts of learners, who
are supported to build upon existing knowledge bases (Goodyear & Ellis, 2010)
LEARNING IS COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE, SOCIAL and SENSORI--MOTOR

Learning is complex and based on levels of the cognitive domain

Learning is affective, and involves domain levels that include attitudes,
emotions, feelings, values, enthusiasm and motivations

Learning should incorporate the five senses, and be active

Learning involves socio-cultural processes through communication,
participation, negotiation, collaboration and initiation
Cognitive learning
. Online spaces should be informed by designed learning so that they intentionally
support and scaffold cognitive learning, with tools and artefacts selected based on
their affordances for particular learning purposes (Bates, 2011). These tools and
artefacts may include collaboration spaces and software, and discipline-specific tools.
Collaborative software supports the socio-cultural amplification of knowledge,
and promotes deep learning (Hung & Chen, 2001). Through the digitising of
contributions, learners are able to contribute, and reformulate their contributions
(Rosie, 2001). In a deeply social activity involving transactions with other people,
learners are able to see others in the process of learning (vicarious learning) and reexamine their own worldview in the light of a range of other perspectives (Brown &
Duguid, 2000). It is therefore important that learners collaborate and share their ideas
and perspectives to support not only their own learning, but also that of others. In
particular, as they engage with technologies and generate and remix content through
analysis, communication of their ideas is valuable (Bates, 2011).
Resource-based learning provides access to information and instruction, but
for deeper learning there is a need to have activities embedded in appropriate
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conceptual tasks. Within these tasks, subject specific skills will be called upon
requiring subject specific softwares (Bates, 2011). Cognitive tools support simulation,
manipulation of variables, and opportunities to test hypotheses in a safe and nonchallenging environment (Candy, 2004). This may be as simple as graphing
calculators, spreadsheets, or concept maps, or as complex as ecological or engineering
simulations. In this way, digital technologies support thinking, processing, and the
amplification of knowledge (Candy, 2004).
Affective learning
Higher education has traditionally maintained a strong focus on cognitive outcomes,
however knowledge is never value-free (Chalkley, 2006). Affective learning is
generally embedded in the generic attributes of many courses in higher education
programs as they contribute to employability and successful participation in the
workplace. Whilst these are broadly formulated in the institutional learning strategy,
they are potentially by-products of learning, audited and identified after the course
design is complete.
The link between ability and behaviour is often not clearly articulated when assessing
student outcomes (Chalkley, 2006). Nonetheless, academics and course designers
often consider affective outcomes when they develop their pedagogical strategies to
support learning. In the education context, there is a need for consistency between the
attitudes and values recognizable in the curriculum, and those characteristics as
exhibited in the profession. In preparing pre-service teachers for their professional
roles, any course they participate in must model responsiveness to attitudes and
emotional states, something less difficult in a face to face situation. If we value
equally affective and cognitive outcomes in online learning, and to the way that
outcomes “shape individuals and societies” (Russell, 2006, p 6). Strategies should be
examined to identify affective nuances through close attention to interactions and
artefacts generated by students. Whilst it is claimed that the distancing effect of
online education will never be overcome, the use of regular, synchronous videoconferencing links, and face to face meetings where possible, can serve to more
closely monitor the attitudes and progress of learners (Russell, 2006). In particular,
tools that are able to monitor students’ emotions and feelings, such as ‘thumbs up’,
100
smiley faces are able to reduce the distancing effect of online learning (McGovern &
Barnes, 2009). With this in mind, a reconceptualization of the value system
underpinning the design of on-line learning is critical (Russell, 2006), together with a
clear identification of the affective factors supported and developed throughout a
course.
Sensori-motor learning
Dettmer (2006) stresses that the senses are avenues for concept formation, problem
solving, and experiences as they nurture intellectual skills. Sensory input in online
environments is diverse, ranging from differences in colour, placement, formatting
and organization, to the stimulus provided by images, sound, and animations or video
(Ally, 2008). Highly active learning is also supported through gaming, interactive
learning objects and participating in virtual worlds. For adult learners, this often adds
new affordances to their traditional text-based learning environments. These
affordances can provide immersive and active learning experiences rich in sensory
input.
Socio-cultural learning
Using the capacity of Web 2.0 tools involves a new mindset – from consumption of
resources to the generation of resources and artefacts, and the creation of new
knowledge whilst also supporting personal sense-making and reflection (Bryant,
2007; Downes, 2007) . The collective intelligence of groups can be harnessed to
generate ideas that are fresher, richer, and more sophisticated than the contribution of
individual users. The real power of Web 2.0 is its capacity to support collaborative
and social learning in which learners actively co-construct knowledge as part of a
dynamic learning community. Already addressed in previous sections is the
importance of an authentic, problem-based task within which learning is a sociocultural dialogic.
From the perspective of both learner and teacher, the transparency of online
learning is vital (Dalsgaard & Paulsen, 2009). Learners leave permanent digital
records of their activities, as text, sound, images and video, so scrutiny and
monitoring is possible by teachers and peers. Through the validation of individual
ideas against those of others, , learners extend their knowledge through social
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interaction in seeking a solution to a problem. Ultimately learning is, however,
individual. This emphasizes the importance of the social aspect of learning, and the
learner as “self”. If this is what learners want, design and tool selection should be to
support both social interaction and learning interactions with interchangeability of
purpose with the tools provided (Creanor & Trinder, 2010).
Group activity online is well supported in the democratic environment of a
wiki. Careful scaffolding and modelling can be useful in this case, with online
collaboration being self-maintained rather than being directly supervised by the
teacher (Benfield & De Laat, 2010). Networked learning and networks are essential to
support learning. ICT promotes collaborative or cooperative connections between
learners, learners and tutors, and learners and learning resources to enhance the
efficacy of learning (Cameron, 2009)..Both weak and strong ties are important, the
former to diversify the perspectives available to the learner, the latter to deepen
critical analysis of these perspectives (Benfield & De Laat, 2010).
Three levels of social interactivity mediated by technology may be observed
online (Bates, 2011). Firstly, individuals may use social software tools to manage
personal information only, with none of the networking functions being activated.
While this is able to be shared, it is not a primary goal. Secondly, communication is
enabled through aggregation of ideas and resources in online spaces. Finally, social
software can be used to support genuine social networking in which the power of the
network can leverage the power of many (Bates, 2011). Furthermore, this
connectivity, communication and collaboration can be supported in both synchronous
and asynchronous ways; thus supporting learning across boundaries of time and place.
The patterns of collaboration and communication may differ within and between
discipline areas to meet the needs of the subject and the learning needs of all students
(Cook, 2006). For instance, collaborative tools are not as commonly used in the
Sciences as in the Humanities (Cameron, 2009; Cook, 2006).
Communication is important in the social community and represents the
feelings of its members regarding connectedness, interdependence and sense of
belonging. Many students may experience isolation which may result in feeling
marginalised and disenfranchised (Jones, Chew, Jones, & Lau, 2009). An individual
connecting to other learners is most important to promote avenues for engagement
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networking amongst the learning community members (Duncan & Young, 2009).
Providing a physical presence through voice and video is critical to learners, with
regular feedback to them about the way they are meeting course expectations critical
(Duncan & Young, 2009).
LEARNING IS BEST SUPPORTED THROUGH CONSTRUCTIVE
ALIGNMENT OF ASSESSMENT, CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY

Learning should be by design

The design should demonstrate clear alignment with theoretical
underpinnings

The design should demonstrate clear alignment between what is stated
as the outcomes, the content and pedagogy, and the demonstration of
learning. This should include alignment between the modality and
context of learning

When investigating online learning in a focussed way, four interrelated processes
emerge (de Freitas & Conole, 2010), namely: thinking and reflecting; conversation
and interaction; experience and activity; and evidence and demonstration. The design
implications emerging from these process are the requirement for an online learning
environment to provide space, resources and support for active immersion in learning
materials, personal online space for thinking and reflecting, online spaces for
conversations and interaction in collaborative learning, and individualised
opportunities to develop demonstrations of student knowledge and evidence them
with designed and creative artefacts. Decisions about learning design cannot occur
without a prior examination of theory. There should be consistency between the
alignment of curriculum, teaching methods, learning environment and assessment
procedures (Biggs, 2012).
When defining a course outcome, there are implicit assumptions about what is
important (Mayes & de Freitas, 2007). Therefore, clear design principles are essential
to promote course expectations. An example of a course that was redesigned using
clear design principles to make explicit intended outcomes, the learning activities and
assessment for the course is described by Sharpe and Oliver (2007). One design
103
principle explicitly identified was that the tutor in certain activities was to be
approached only as a last resort, and furthermore, access was restricted to those
students who had engaged with the online environment. Peer support groups formed,
and tutorials became intense experiences of non-trivial problems. Thus, as a design
principle, students were expected to engage regularly and routinely, to establish good
study habits (Stubbs, Martin, & Endlar, 2006).
As social constructivism is the framework implicit in our design, students will
work beyond the content and discipline-specific thinking processes, and develop
information literacy skills in effectively finding, evaluating and creating information.
Biggs (2012) uses the term “constructive alignment” to indicate that in his view the
guiding assumptions about learning should be based on constructivist theory. Beyond
search and retrieval, we promote supporting students in contextualizing, analysing,
visualising and synthesizing information (Jenkins, Purushotma, Clintin, Weigel, &
Robison, 2006; Lorenzo & Dziuban, 2006) . By encouraging learners to use learnergenerated content, they are supported in intellectual ownership (Bates, 2011).
Beyond alignment with theory, the principles of constructive alignment
(Biggs, 2003) should be explicitly applied in the learning design of online courses.
This approach requires direct alignment of stated outcomes, student assessment and
the learning outcomes demonstrated by students (Biggs, 2003). In a constructivist
learning environment, this entails a focus on deep transformation of knowledge rather
than mere recall of facts (Walsh, 2007). The outcome of constructive alignment is
likely to be more active engagement of learners in the learning process (Biggs, 2003).
Furthermore, pedagogical approaches should reflect a constructivist approach,
implying that interactive, collaborative learning should replace didactic lecture-based
presentations.
Finally, the alignment should occur within an authentic context so that
functional knowledge is demonstrated by learners (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Meaningful linkages connecting learner experience and professional practice through
connections between knowledge, skills and practice should be explicit.
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Organization and pre-planning are vital. The provision of a clear roadmap is
essential online so that students can easily locate all materials on the course website,
as well as obvious step by step instructions on tasks and assignments, comprehensible
learning objectives and detailed criteria on marking and grading. Accumulating
course materials supports learners in directing their own learning, and if learning is to
be interactive, then students must complete their tasks within a bounded timeframe
(Duncan & Young, 2009)
LEARNING IS BEST WHEN ACTIVITIES ARE PURPOSEFUL AND
ALIGNED WITH ASSESSMENT

Activities should explicitly contribute to assessment and involve full
participation
In terms of their selection of technologies, learners require strong justification to
embrace new technologies (Creanor & Trinder, 2010). Many are learning-oriented,
others are goal-oriented and will do only what is required to demonstrate learning
outcomes (Candy, 2004). Thus, it is important that activities are meaningfully aligned
with assessment to support full participation. Whilst technologies are increasing in
use in higher education institutions, their use for assessment is not aligned. For
instance, academics have reported using closed multiple choice quizzes to assess
creativity (McNeill & Gosper, 2010). Generally tools are used to assess knowledge in
traditional ways with little creative use of technology for assessment (McNeill,
Gosper & Hedberg, 2010).
Technology enhanced learning should unquestionably change assessment. By
changing the nature of the learning process and what can be learned, technology
enhanced outputs inevitably challenge conventional forms of assessment and lead to
requirements for different kinds of assessment (Schoonenboom & Levene, 2007). If
we are expecting learners to become co-participants in a knowledge-building process
in a learning community, we need to simulate and match the demands of the
workplace environment, which requires different assessment that extends beyond
recall and demonstration of skills (Laurillard, Oliver, Wasson, & Hoppe, 2009).
CONCLUSION
105
The way students learn today has changed radically as they engage and interact with
multiple sources of information. This situation requires a holistic online course design
framework to ensure pedagogical consistency that utilises technology to motivate and
actively involve students as they participate in individual and collaborative learning
spaces to locate and judge the reliability of information for knowledge construction.
To this end, this chapter has outlined principles that need to be acknowledged
and endorsed when designing courses that address the generational shift in learning
which is occurring (Davidson & Goldberg, 2012). As Biggs (2012, p. 54) reminds us:
“Aligning practice on the basis of what students should be doing is
likely to be more fruitful than focussing only on what teachers and
administrators do”
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Chapter Six
A Study of Factors Influencing Success in
an Introduction to English Linguistics
Rebecca Babcock, Jack Nichols, Suzanne Rathbun
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin, USA
Julie McCown
University of Texas Arlington, USA
Amanda McCain
Texas A&M Commerce, USA
Abstract
At The University of Texas of the Permian Basin, students exhibited varying levels of
success in an introduction to English linguistics course. In order to investigate this
phenomenon, researchers measured various factors that may have influenced success
in this course. Researchers used the Nelson-Denny reading test, surveys, interviews,
and course grades to determine levels of success. After measuring for several factors
such as time at tutoring, time reading or studying, and attitudes, the one standout
factor related to success in the course as measured by grades was reading level with
tutoring as a complicating factor. Our results imply that introduction to linguistics
courses should carry a minimum reading level of Grade 13 (first-year postsecondary
level) as a prerequisite, and require tutoring for those who fall below the level (1012th grade, secondary level). Students with an overall reading level below tenth grade
should be discouraged from taking these courses.
Key words: linguistics, reading test, reading level, Nelson-Denny, tutoring
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Introduction
Introduction to English linguistics is a historically difficult course at The University
of Texas of the Permian Basin. The course, called The English Language, is a juniorlevel course that covers aspects of English language linguistics including but not
limited to phonetics; phonology; morphology; syntax; semantics; stylistics; discourse;
dialects and varieties; global Englishes; the history of English; lexicography; social
factors such as region, age, race, class, ethnicity and gender; and other relevant topics.
Undergraduate ESL/Bilingual minors are required to take this course, and it meets
requirements for English majors, Child & Family Studies majors, and
Multidisciplinary Studies majors. After teaching the course in 2005 and 2006, the first
author noticed marked differences in achievement among students in the course. She
decided to investigate the factors for success, which included the personal qualities
students needed to succeed in a required class with difficult material. This article
reports the results of a research project designed to measure the factors that students
bring with them to the course that influence success. When the investigation began,
these questions were open and researchers did not have a preconceived hypothesis of
what we would find. The fact that reading level and attendance at tutoring emerged as
the most relevant factors is further support for the previous literature finding these
issues related to college success (Green &Celkan, 2011; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh& Whitt,
2010).
Determining the factors needed for success is important because The English
Language covers a great deal of material that many students find difficult. The
reading load is not exceptionally heavy, but is done independently, without the
support of lectures. Twice a week homework activities are assigned that are highly
dependent on reading skills. When grading the homework, the first author found that
several students failed to answer the questions as asked, leading her to suspect they
did not comprehend the material. Also, several students with low reading skills
plagiarized on homework, exams, and papers by copying word-for-word from the
textbook or an internet source instead of composing their own work.
During tutoring and study groups, graduate assistants and supplemental
instruction leaders went over the material from the chapters. One graduate assistant
reported having to “break things down to their basic roots” because many students
seemed to lack the rudimentary elements and had some form of floating midknowledge:
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It sounds bizarre, but it seems that they only understand the mid-range
of English and I would have to break it down to almost verb/noun
level. In this specific class, many were ESL students and while I was
trying to help them with phonetics they were more interested in what
they felt they were lacking. Some students just needed what the
chapters were presenting, and they needed to understand how to read
an instructional book. The contents seemed overwhelming at first. As I
helped them work through the book, they became more comfortable
with the text. It was as if the contents of the book were a steppingstone to their real problems. (Eileen Peters, personal communication,
April 16, 2010)
Another graduate assistant who conducted study sessions focused primarily on
completing homework rather than reviewing course material. He reported that he first
would wait for students to arrive at the study session, and then when they did arrive,
they would ask for help with whatever problems they felt they would need assistance
with from their current homework:
First they might ask, "Would you help me with this particular
problem?" I would immediately look or ask to see what they had so
far. If they had some work done, I'd look over their work. If the answer
was wrong, then I'd begin to question why they thought that was the
appropriate answer. From there, we'd be able to find the answer they
were looking for. If the answer was correct, I'd tell them they had it
right. Now, if they had not answered the question yet, I'd ask them to
come up with an answer first. If their reply was, "I don't even know
where to start," then we'd look at the question together. I'd usually, or
they would, read the question aloud. From there, I was able to
reference back to a point in class when [the professor] had gone over
the material, which was usually the day of. I never had the study
sessions before class, so the students were usually there to do the
current homework from the same day. And no one ever came in on the
non-class day (Friday). (Jason Dominguez, personal communication,
March 30, 2010).
We wanted to find the factors that make this course difficult for some students, while
others completed it with relative ease. The issue could be with the amount or type of
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content and the independent reading required. Since we had no preconceptions about
what the factors may have been, in the first iteration of the study the primary
researcher asked students about several factors, including outside work, time spent
studying, and whether they had a friend in the class. See Appendix A for the variety
of questions that were asked. Unfortunately the response was too small to do a
statistical analysis on the survey results. After doing this preliminary work we found
the factor that most closely related final course grades was reading level. Those with a
graduate-school reading level had little trouble with the course, while those with
lower reading scores required extreme effort to succeed, if they could succeed at all.
Having noticed this factor after the preliminary results from Summer ‘07, in the Fall
of ’07 the first author encouraged those with a reading level below 12th grade to
attend tutoring. Since tutoring appears to have a positive effect, the amount and type
of tutoring may also be a factor, and this is something that will be the focus of a future
study.
Literature Review
A literature review is difficult to write for an exploratory study that lacked an initial
hypothesis. Here we attempt to relate the factors we explored to factors others have
studied as well. Although there have been previous studies that looked at reading
tests, tutoring, and motivation and their relationship to college course success,
especially in writing, we found little that related specifically to courses in linguistics.
Reading Skill/Level as Predictor of Success
As the Nelson Denny Reading Test (NRDT) is given to all incoming freshmen at our
university, we found it the most convenient test to use to assess the reading levels of
the student participants. The validity of the NRDT has recently been called into
question (Coleman, Lindstrom, Nelson, Lindstrom & Gregg, 2010); nevertheless, due
to the long history of research on the NRDT, we found it informative for our study.
Research into the NRDT as a predictor of college grades and course success began
with such seminal studies as Gerow & Murphy (1980), Erwin (1981), and Wood
(1982). Research continued, with Royer, Marchant, Sinatra, and Lovejoy (1990),
Baron and Norman (1992), and Hudson, McPhee, and Petrosko (1993) all finding a
correlation between reading test scores and academic performance in college courses.
More recent studies have found similar results: Green and Celkan (2011) found that
“74% of Nelson Denny scores correlated with final [course] grades” (p. 345).
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Relationship of Tutoring to Success
Since we did not begin with a hypothesis but tested several possible factors in
success, we include attendance at tutoring sessions as a possible factor. Previous
research has shown that tutoring can improve the academic performance of both
tutors and tutees (Juel, 1996). Tutoring has been shown to benefit students’ academic
performance in a number of ways, including keeping them from becoming frustrated
and assisting them in completing work in less time (Merrill, Reisterr, Merrill, &
Landes, 1995). Along with tutoring, supplemental instruction (SI) has been found to
be an important component in students’ academic success. However, Visor, Johnson
and Cole (1992) found that students with positive self-esteem, internal locus of
control and high self-efficacy were more likely to be regular participants at SI
sessions. Students who needed extra help most were least likely to attend sessions, or
if they did attend, they did not persevere. More recently, Malm, Bryngforsa, &
Mörnera (2012) noted that not only did Supplemental Instruction improve
examination results for undergraduate engineering students, that it helped them
improve their overall performance in first-year courses and study skills learned in SI
transferred to other courses.
Role of Motivation
In addition to reading level and attendance at tutoring and SI sessions, another
important factor in academic performance is student motivation. In a study of
Developmental Education Biology Students and academic motivation, Moore (2007)
concluded that academic motivation, more so than extra credit work, resulted in
higher grades and that “Innate intelligence is of little use unless it is accompanied by
motivation” (p. 32). Since the University of Texas of the Permian Basin is a HispanicServing Institution, and over half of the study participants were Hispanic, the research
of Kaufman, Agars, & Lopez-Wagner (2008) is relevant here. Kaufman and
colleagues measured motivation, personality, and first-quarter course grades at a
Hispanic-Serving Institution and found that four variables studied produced
significant coefficients. These were “high school GPA, intrinsic motivation
orientation, extrinsic motivation orientation, and conscientiousness” (p. 494).
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Method
In the Summer and Fall 2007 sessions of The University of Texas of the Permian
Basin, Odessa, TX, a research team consisting of the lead investigator, a
demographer, a statistician and three assistants1 began data collection and got
informed consent on the first day of classes. The final data set consists of the first
author’s courses from Summer 2007, Fall 2007, and Fall 2008, and 53 students from
these sessions (Summer ’07 n = 20, Fall ’07 n = 7 and Fall ’08 n = 27) provided the
participant pool for this research. Participants included 11 males and 42 females.
Three ethnic backgrounds were identified: Hispanic (n = 26), African American (n =
1), Caucasian (n = 23), and non-responding (n = 3). From the available data, 13
participants had received course prerequisites from local junior colleges and one from
another local area university. Participants were not provided with incentives for their
participation.
We chose which factors to study through introspection (a common method in
linguistics), consulting with colleagues, and checking several articles (i.e. Mertens,
1990). The information collected was the reading level (as reported by the NDRT)
and self-reported data such as the amount of time spent on the course and outside
factors such as family and work responsibilities. We also asked about socioeconomic
level and whether or not they had a friend in the class. In addition, we looked at time
spent on various class activities including reading, homework, and study sessions, and
also gathered data on ethnicity (as determined by the researcher), gender, major, and
prerequisites. The Fall 2008 students were also asked about their first language after
the initial analysis showed Hispanics trended toward lower reading levels.
The primary investigator decided to conduct the study with an assistant so the
students would feel comfortable being open with their responses. The assistant met
with students and got their informed consent. They took the Nelson-Denny reading
test in class on the first day of the semester and were asked to fill out an online survey
at the end of the semester. Students were also asked to keep a time log of their class
activities. The assistant then conducted unstructured follow-up interviews. She
initially attempted to contact all students from the Fall ’06 group, but none of these
chose to complete any activities associated with the study. As a result we then decided
1
In addition to the listed authors, Eileen Peters and Sherry McKibben were members of this team.
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to study the Summer and Fall ’07 courses, both in-class, with a follow-up cohort of
the Fall 2008 class.
The data consists of Nelson Denny reading scores (reading level, vocabulary, and
total scores), journal entries, an online survey, and one-on-one interviews. Out of
twenty-four students in the summer 2007 course, twenty volunteered to participate in
the study, five of whom dropped the course. Out of the remaining fifteen participants,
six answered the online questionnaire and two completed interviews. Of the seven
students in the fall 2007 class, there were five participants, four of whom did
interviews and only one of whom filled out the online survey, resulting in a total of
twenty grades and reading scores, seven surveys and six interviews. For fall 2008
there were twenty-seven participants, twenty-two of whom took the reading test, and
one of whom withdrew, making a total of 41 participants with both grades and
reading scores. All participants were treated in accordance with the standards of the
American Psychological Association and the Internal Review Board of The
University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Signed statements of informed consent are
on file.
Results
This study examined 54 university students in three school sessions (Summer ’07 n =
20; Fall ’07 n = 7; and Fall ’08 n = 27)to determine the factors associated with
success. We looked at reading levels for all three semesters, and since we suspected
that attendance at tutoring sessions may have been a factor, we recorded those
numbers for the Fall ’07 and ’08 cohorts. Researchers relied upon a grading structure
of 0-100 with an A=90-100 (the highest scores),B=80-89, C=70-79, D=60-69 and
F=59-0 (failing).Of the five students with reading levels below grade 9 (equivalent to
primary education), two earned Cs and three earned Fs. Those who earned Cs
attended numerous study sessions and tutoring sessions. Seven students had reading
levels of grades 10, 11, and 12 (secondary level; equivalent to ages 15-18), all of
whom passed. Students with college reading levels (grade 13 or above) tended to do
well, even without completing all the readings or spending a great deal of time on the
class. Out of the 41 participants with both grades and reading scores, nine had reading
levels above 17.9. which is equivalent to a Master’s degree or six years of tertiary
education. Seven of these students got As, one got a C and one got a D. In addition,
all the students who got As had reading levels of 10th grade and above. Students with
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reading scores above grade 12 who completed the course all got As and Bs with two
exceptions. Students who got Fs had the lowest average reading scores (M = 9.2).
Table 1.
Grades by reading level
Grades
Min
Max
Mean/SD
n=
A
10.3
18.9
16.06/3.15
15
B
12.3
17.3
15.5/1.7
10
C
4.1
18.4
12.2/4.9
11
D
14.6
18.8
16.7/2.9
2
F
5.8
13.9
9.2/4.2
3
Table 2.
Grades by study sessions
Grades
None
Some (1-2)
Many (3+)
A
3
2
2
B
7
1
1
C
4
6
0
D
4
0
0
F
0
2
0
Table 1 indicates the overall results of the reading levels and final course grades of
the students. Students who received F’s (n = 3) in the course had lower reading levels
than those who received A’s-D’s (Table 1). The question of whether or not the
number of study sessions attended was related to reading grade level was also
addressed. Those few students with low reading levels who attended more than one
study session attained better grades than those with lower reading levels who attended
none (See Table 2). Results indicated that students with higher reading levels tended
to make better grades in the course than those students with lower reading levels.
Students with the highest reading levels used 88% of the study sessions and tutoring
overall and students who attend study sessions improved their course grade regardless
of reading level.
Gender and ethnicity were not considered as a factor in the use of study sessions.
However gender and ethnicity were factors recorded in the data sets as they related to
reading levels. When considering the data among ethnic and gender groups (See
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Table 3), Caucasians had the highest reading levels among ethnic
groups(M=16.3)with white females exhibiting the highest levels (M=16.9) between
genders. With no consideration given for English as a second language, Hispanics
with course grades equivalent to Caucasians recorded mean reading levels lower than
their Caucasian counterparts (See Table 4).Reading score seemed to be an important
predictive factor, and attendance at tutoring and study sessions seemed to help those
students who otherwise might not have succeeded, as the students with belowsecondary reading levels who attended study sessions passed the course, while those
who did not attend, failed.
Table 3.
Ethnicity by overall reading level mean and gender reading level mean
Ethnicity
Reading Level Mean
Male Mean
Female Mean
Caucasian
16.3
15.8
16.9
Hispanic
12.5
14.6
12.1
African American
11.1
11.1
Table 4.
Grade by ethnicities mean reading level
Grade
Caucasian
Hispanic
A
17.3
14.2
B
15.23
15.21
C
17.6
9.1
D
18.1
14.6
F
13.9
6.9
African American
11.1
Discussion
This study produced more questions than answers, as so much more than reading
level goes into the grades in a class. While the sample was not large enough to
formulate generalizable results, there are some trends that we would like to discuss.
After collecting data for a few semesters we have realized how important reading skill
is to success in courses in linguistics. Each semester the first author offers extra
tutoring sessions with both a Graduate Teaching Assistant and a Supplemental
Instruction Leader (an upper level student who has successfully completed the
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course). Yet students still struggle and all that could benefit do not take advantage of
study sessions. A future qualitative study could investigate students’ reading and
study habits to determine what specific behaviors are conducive to success. It is
tempting to establish a minimum reading score as a prerequisite for the course, but
this seems impractical.
Very few students filled out the online surveys or completed the interview process;
however, the students who did so received either As (90-100) or Bs (80-89). This
tends to show that students who are not successful in the course do not follow up on
research activities, or even that students who are not successful are less motivated in
general. Perhaps successful students are exceptionally motivated. Williams &Takaku
(2011) found that it was not motivation but help-seeking behavior that correlated with
visiting the writing center and improved grades.
Students with As appeared to be those who had a high reading level without
necessarily putting in excessive hours, those with moderate reading levels who put in
extra hours of studying, or those who attended tutoring and study sessions. Students
who failed appeared to be those with reading levels below grade 9 who did not seek
help. Of the four students in the summer class who completed the course with a
failing grade, one stopped attending, and the other three plagiarized. Only one student
who plagiarized was a study participant, and her reading score was 5.8 (equivalent
approximately to age 11). It appears that students who cannot understand the material
they read become panicked and then plagiarize as a last desperate act. It seems almost
cruel to expect students with an elementary reading level to complete college-level
work, and although disturbing, the plagiarism is not surprising. Upon repeating the
course, the student with the reading level of 5.8 plagiarized again, and still has not
finished her course work.2
At first we thought that whether the student took the prerequisite (Sophomore
Literature) at the junior college or university would have some effect. In actuality,
where the prerequisite was taken did not seem to have any effect on success. There
was one student who had not passed Sophomore Literature at all and was taking the
prerequisite of that course (English Composition II) concurrently with the ENGL
3371 course. (She had already failed English Composition II once and gotten two Ds
and was on her fourth attempt.) This was the student with a 5.8 grade reading level
2
As of December 2011 she completed her course requirements to graduate.
123
mentioned above who failed the course, mainly due to plagiarism and not accepting
the help that was offered by the teacher. She explained later in an interview that
English is her second language and she was never educated in Spanish. She is a
generation 1.5 learner, meaning that her parents were Mexican immigrants although
she was born in the US. Her grandmother spoke Spanish and read to her in Spanish,
and her parents both spoke English and Spanish. She was placed in an ESL program
in school. She had trouble with paraphrasing but stated the writing center was helpful.
Conclusion
Although the data does not lend itself to generalizable conclusions, here we
will point out trends. We have treated these results as a pilot study to alert us to the
factors that we need to study and those of less importance. For instance, the first
author thought time spent on the course would be a factor in student success. From
the results we have determined that topics of interest to future research will be to take
a closer look at the intersection between reading levels, attendance at study sessions
and tutoring and resulting course grades. These study sessions can be student led and
organized, or led by the teacher, Supplementary Instruction leader, or Graduate
Assistant. Tutoring is also offered in reading and writing through student services.
Further studies could also look at race, gender, native language, and ethnicity as
factors in success. An even more disturbing question is why students with such low
reading levels are in junior-level courses.
Due to the history of The University of Texas Permian Basin as an upper-level
institution, most students in the study were transfer students. Students more than 24
hours of transfer credit are admitted with a 2.0 minimum grade point average
(equivalent to a C or 75). Further research may investigate how students with low
reading levels manage to “slip through” and take upper-level courses. It may be
beneficial to look more closely at failing students and students with low reading
scores (low reading score appears to be predictive of a C or an F depending on the
level of outside help the student accesses). The difficulty will be following up on the
failing students, as they tend not to participate in follow-up activities. Again, because
they do not fill out surveys or participate in interviews, we don’t know if they are just
not motivated or don’t care, or if they are ashamed, hurt, or bitter and don’t wish to
revisit a painful experience. Closely tracking the type and amount of outside help
students receive should enable us to verify our suspicions about the relationship of
124
reading level to ultimate outcome in the course. We will also try to determine the
reason for low reading scores. Could it be ethnicity? Knowledge of English? All
students with low reading scores were Hispanic, but since none of them filled out the
survey, we do not know if English was their first or second language, or if there were
other factors such as test bias.
Minorities have lower self-efficacy beliefs (Pajares, 2003), but we did not test
for this so we cannot tell if there is a relationship. Rather than have an online survey
that students need to log on to fill out after the class is over, we will personally follow
up with students and interview them in person or by phone. The use of an assistant is
a good idea for confidentiality, but the assistant is not as motivated as the primary
investigator to strongly pursue participants to get responses.
We would also like to investigate the nature of the connection between attitude and
motivation and success in the course or attendance at tutoring and SI sessions. In Fall
'07 students who did not attend tutoring responded that they didn't have time or the
hours available just weren't convenient for their schedule. In other words, they had
other activities that seemed more pressing than tutoring. None of the students in the
off-campus section attended reading tutoring on-campus. The director of the literacy
center did not meet personally with the students at the remote location as she did with
the summer students who took the class on-campus. In summer five students attended
reading tutoring. Our results imply that intro to linguistics courses should carry a
minimum reading level of 13 as a prerequisite, and require tutoring for those who fall
below the level (10-12). Students with an overall reading level below tenth grade
should be discouraged from taking these courses.
Finally, we did not look at self-efficacy, which in subsequent research we have found
is a likely factor in success (Pajeres, 2003). A 2005 article by Buehl and Alexander
asserts that “students’ beliefs about their ability to accomplish a specific task
successfully (i.e., self-efficacy) are related to their task choice, persistence, and
performance” (p. 698). Systematic interventions on the part of the professor can
enhance, in a limited capacity, students’ beliefs in their self-efficacy (Jackson, 2002).
Future studies should measure the relationship between students’ self-efficacy beliefs
and their performance in linguistics.
Research designs, like teachers, need to be reflective and recursive, always changing
and updating in a feedback loop as we obtain new data, we refine what we are looking
for, and how we can best access that information. We are hoping to provide a positive
125
experience for students of all levels, and the continuation of this research should help
us to do that.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Carol Morris for editing and to Michael O. and Jason Babcock for their
insightful comments. Thanks also to Babcock’s Spring 2011 online ENGL 1301 class
and her online writing group for excellent feedback.
References
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Appendix A: Survey Questions

Do you feel you were successful in the course? (y/n)

What was your grade?

How many hours per week did you spend working on the class? (Broken down
by the following categories: Online, in class, reading, studying, doing
homework, researching, doing tests)
127

Did you read all assigned materials? (if no, what percent did you read)

How many times did you read the assigned materials?

What outside obligations did you have and how many hours a week did these
take?

How many hours were you taking the semester you took 3371?

Did you have the proper prerequisite? (sophomore English)

Is English your first language?

What is your country of birth/citizenship?

Do you have a computer at home with internet access?

Do you believe that the responsibility for learning is the teacher’s, student’s or
both?

Was the class an elective or a requirement?

Did you have another reason for taking this class?

What is your major and minor?

Did you take advantage of any student services? If so, which ones? (i.e.
library, writing center)

Did you attempt to get help in any other way? If so, what did you do? (i.e.
asked friends, teacher for help, attend study sessions)

Did you attend any study sessions, either with the teacher, assistant, or other
students? (You may select more than one.)

What study or reading strategies did you use, if any?

How did the performance of the teaching assistant affect your success in the
class?

Have you taken English Grammar or Spanish Linguistics?

What is your preferred learning style? (auditory, kinesthetic, visual)

Did you have a friend in the course?

What is your socioeconomic status?
128
Chapter Seven
Supporting Student Learning through Collaborative Assessment Tasks
Rosario Hernández
University College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
The significance of student learning as a social activity often manifests itself in
collaborative learning through interaction and interdependence in higher education
contexts. Approaches such as Problem-Based Learning (PBL), task-based learning
and project work are examples of collaborative learning. However, the translation of
collaborative learning into collaborative assessment is not always successfully
accomplished, and often the collaborative learning approaches are abandoned in
favour of ‘individual’ assessment practices graded by academics; and, even when
students are involved in collaborative assessment, their dissatisfaction is often
reported in the literature. This chapter makes a case for student interaction through
peer-assessment tasks as a way of supporting collaborative learning. It draws on data
collected from students and faculty staff from several higher education institutions in
Ireland on the subject of peer assessment. Discussion of the findings highlights that
staff and students, in principle, support collaborative assessment, but its actual
implementation seems to be less apparent. It is argued that failure to recognise the
potential of collaborative student peer assessment tasks may be due to views of
assessment held by faculty staff and by students, and to students not being sufficiently
prepared for involvement in collaborative assessment. A number of proposals are
suggested and substantiated by practices already implemented by the author, which
are intended to move forward the current debate on the topic of collaborative
assessment and pedagogical praxis.
Keywords: collaborative assessment, student learning, student assessment,
129
Introduction
A shift from a teaching to a learning paradigm (Barr & Tagg, 1995), where the
focus is on what the students are learning has taken place in many higher education
institutions in the last few decades. A learning paradigm can unfold itself at different
levels including the aims of the institution, its program structures or the roles of
faculty and students, to name a few. Expressions of this paradigm are at least twofold;
first, learning is defined in terms of what students will be able to do (i.e. learning
outcomes; Marsh, 2004) and second, it becomes a social activity through interaction
and interdependence (Vygotsky, 1978). A curriculum based on learning outcomes has
the potential to provide a cohesive structure to the teaching context where students are
required to take more responsibility for their learning. This is one of the reasons why
outcomes tend to be associated with a student-centred approach to teaching and
learning (Biggs, 2003). Such an approach to teaching and learning entails active
participation in the learning process by the students, often in collaboration with one
another.
Collaborative learning is becoming a common feature of students’ higher
education experience (Boud, Cohen, & Sampson, 2006). It epitomises the social
constructivist perspective on learning, emphasising the importance of others,
including teachers as mediators of learning (Vygotsky, 1978). Collaborative learning
requires students to be actively involved in the process of learning from the outset,
through Problem Based Learning (PBL), project work and task-based learning.
However, collaborative learning, which is often reported as conducive to learning
(Bryan, 2006; Hernández, 2007c; McDowell et al., 2005), is not always successfully
translated into collaborative assessment. When collaborative assessment is used, an
objection is often raised about the allocation of marks to each student on the basis of
group work (Bloxham & Boyd, 2007; Falchikov, 2005). Thus, concerns about
collaborative assessment often surface in a number of areas including assessment of
process versus final product (Orr, 2010) or issues of fairness and free-loading students
(Maiden & Perry, 2011; Nordberg, 2008). These matters could lead to resistance from
students and faculty staff to engage in collaborative assessment (Falchikov, 2005;
Gibbs, 1999) or lack of support at institutional level (Muldoon & Lee, 2007). As a
result, when it comes to assessment, collaborative learning approaches tend to be
130
abandoned in favour of ‘individual’ assessment practices graded by faculty staff.
Even when group work is assessed the involvement of students in its assessment is
limited and their dissatisfaction is often reported in the literature. Falchikov argues
that “grading is not the most important aspect of involving students in assessment”
(2005, p. 167). Sluijsmans, Moerkerke, van Merriënboer, and Dochy, (2001) found
that students are not satisfied with awarding grades to their work. Furthermore, Patton
(2012) concluded that students are in favour of peer assessment as a formative
exercise but are highly critical of it as a summative practice. Shifting the involvement
of students to formative aspects of assessment could result in a more positive learning
experience for the students than if collaborative assessment focuses on summative
activities that involve students in awarding marks to each other’s work. The type of
collaborative assessment proposed in this chapter potentially results in deeper
individual learning as students actively engage with the comments that they award
and receive from fellow students and from faculty staff.
Literature Review
Traditionally, assessment of learning in higher education has been teacher-led.
Boud (2007) argued that in the traditional discourse of assessment learners are
“passive subjects” with “no other role than to subject themselves to the assessment
acts of others, to be measured and classified” ( p. 17). Thus, assessment that promotes
learner-centred approaches is often problematic because it raises issues of power and
control between students and teachers (Savin-Baden, 2004). In the literature on
assessment, peer assessment is regarded as particularly relevant to ensure that
students are “placed at the centre of assessment, working in partnership with
academics to become autonomous and empowered in their learning” (Bain, 2010, p.
25).
The literature on the use of peer assessment suggests that peer assessment
generally increases student responsibility for their own learning (McDowell &
Sambell, 1999). Sambell, McDowell, and Sambell (2006) argued that reducing the
control of the tutor and trusting students to respond to innovative methods of
assessment allows students to exercise greater learner autonomy. In addition,
MacDonald’s (2011) study concluded that peer assessment is seen positively by
students and is perceived to motivate, to facilitate learning, as is a fair method of
assessment. Furthermore, peer assessment can enhance students’ confidence and self131
esteem (Hernández, 2007a), and is crucial in the development of life-long learning
qualities (Brew, 1999; Hernández, 2007a; McDowell & Sambell, 1999). Other
benefits include the promotion of critical thinking (Dochy, Segers, & Sluijsmans,
1999), and the reduction of test anxiety (Ioannou & Artino, 2010).
Resistance from students to becoming involved in collaborative assessment is
often highlighted in the literature (Falchikov, 2005; McDowell & Sambell, 1999;
Sluijsmans et al., 2001). One reason often given by students for such resistance is that
they believe that it is the responsibility of the teacher to assess students’ learning
(Falchikov, 2005; Patton, 2012). Students’ biases in assessing the work of their peers
and their lack of knowledge on how to carry out such tasks are factors often
mentioned by teachers as reasons for not involving students in the assessment of their
own learning (Falchikov, 2005). However, Sambell et al. claim that often students
feel they are “thrown in the deep end” (2006, p.162) and the provision of structured
and guided activities is needed during the early stages of their university studies to
support them in the development of peer assessment practices. In the same way,
Segers and Dochy’s study (2001) concludes that despite positive attitudes of students
about collaborative assessment, there is a need to develop their skills in this field.
McDowell and Sambell (1999) contend that students are in a better position to take
control of their learning when they are provided with the criteria that will be used to
assess their learning. However, Price and O’Donovan (2006) demonstrated that
defined criteria is not enough to ensure a positive effect on students’ learning unless
teachers and learners engage with the criteria in developing a common understanding.
Falchikov (2005) also suggests that time be devoted to providing an explanation to the
learners about their responsibilities and their role in the process of assessment. In
addition to the adequate training and preparation of students for collaborative
assessment, Pettigrew, Scholten, and (2011) argue that an alignment between
assessment tasks and learning outcomes is essential. Falchikov (2005) further
suggests that faculty staff need to establish communities of practice (Wenger, 1998)
to share knowledge and obtain support from colleagues who are already committed to
collaborative assessment.
Context
Collaborative assessment involves the student, their peers and teacher in a critical
assessment of student work. While the assessment is done collaboratively, the tasks
132
may have been the result of individual or group work. This chapter makes a case for
student interaction through a variety of assessment tasks as a way of supporting
collaborative learning within this new learning paradigm. It addresses the question of
how collaborative assessment tasks support learning by developing students’ capacity
to evaluate the quality of their work.
Two case studies, taken from classroom practices developed by the author’s
work in a higher education institution illustrate how student learning can be supported
through collaborative assessment activities. The case studies will be described later in
the chapter. Prior to the case studies, empirical work on peer assessment will be
examined in order to understand how to support students through collaborative
assessment. This study was carried out during 2007-2008 with faculty staff and
undergraduate students from the departments of Hispanic Studies in the seven
universities in the Republic of Ireland (Table 1).
Table 1. Number of participants in target sample and the final sample
Group
Faculty
Heads of subject or nominee
Students
Target
68
7
138
Final
41
7
138
Method
Influenced by those who promote flexible methods (Robson, 2002) that make use
of data in the form of numbers as well as in the form of words, this study is based on
quantitative and qualitative data collected from two questionnaires and from
interviews. To maintain the anonymity of the institutions, each university has been
identified by a letter, e.g. A, B, C, etc.
The faculty staff cohort was drawn from two groups. The larger group comprised
of all academic staff from seven departments/sections of Hispanic Studies in the
universities who completed a postal questionnaire. The second group was a sub set of
the participants in the questionnaire, either in their capacity as heads of
department/section, or as a member of the staff nominated by the head of the
department/section. They participated in a semi-structured interview carried out by
the author. The student sample was drawn from those individuals who were available
133
and/or willing to participate in the completion of the questionnaire on the day that the
researcher visited their university.
For the purpose of analysis, 41 completed surveys from faculty staff were
classified with an ID number (S1, S2, … S41). Interviews were fully transcribed and
an ID number was assigned to each interview (I1, I2, … I7) to preserve the anonymity
of the participants and their institutions. Similarly, each student questionnaire was
coded according to the university from which it originated (e.g. A, B, C, etc.) and was
given an ID number ranging from 1 to 138. For example (D.84) refers to a reply given
by a student from university D, who has been given the ID code 84. Qualitative data
were coded into categories using content analysis. Only data connected to
collaborative assessment has been utilised in this chapter.
Findings
The findings are structured into two sets. Firstly, quantitative data on the
views of faculty staff and students about the involvement of students in collaborative
assessment, specifically through peer assessment practices are reported. The data is
from the two surveys completed by the participants (faculty staff and students). The
second set of data, which arose from the surveys and from interviews conducted with
a sub-group of faculty staff focuses qualitative data related to the views of faculty and
students who are in favour or against the involvement of students in peer assessment
practices.
Views of faculty and students about student involvement peer assessment
practices: Quantitative data.
A 5-point Likert scale was used to elicit, in general terms, the extent to which
peer (collaborative) assessment is used by faculty staff. More than half of the
respondents (63.4%) indicated that they ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ involve students in peer
assessment practices (Q. A1.14; Table 2).
Table 2. Percentage of faculty staff reporting student involvement in peer assessment
Involvement of students
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
in assessment (N= 41)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
‘Peer assessment’
29.3
34.1
19.5
17.1
0
134
To glean an insight from the cohort of students participating in this study on their
involvement in tasks related to the assessment of their learning in Hispanic Studies
programs, they were asked to indicate the extent to which teachers involve the
students in practices that require their engagement in the assessment of the work of
their classmates (Q. A6.4). Peer assessment practices reported by the students appear
to be more limited than those reported by faculty staff, with 56.5% of students stating
that it is ‘never’ used and 31.2% reporting that it is ‘rarely’ used. The results are
displayed in Table 3.
Table 3. Percentage of students reporting their involvement in peer assessment
Involvement of
students in assessment
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
56.5
31.2
10.1
2.2
0
(N= 138)
‘Peer assessment’
A Likert scale (4-point) was used to request faculty staff to provide further
details about the use of specific practices associated with collaborative assessment (Q.
A8). Six options were given: a) ‘one student comments orally in class on the work of
a classmate’, b) ‘in groups, students comment orally on the work of a classmate or
group work’, c) ‘a student comments in writing on the work of a classmate’, d) ‘in
groups, students comment in writing on the work of a classmate or group work’ e) ‘a
student provides a grade to the work of another student’, f) ‘in groups, they give a
grade to the work of a classmate or to group work’. Additionally, there was space for
the respondents to include ‘other’ types of peer assessment practices if the options
provided
did
not
cover
the
peer
assessment
practices
used
in
their
departments/sections.
The only peer assessment practice that appears to be used more often comes
under category b) when ‘students, in small groups comment orally on the work of a
classmate or on group work’, reported as being used ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ by
one quarter of the respondents (26.8%). Assessing work orally, peer to peer was
reported as being used ‘frequently’ by 12.2% of the participants. One reply under the
‘other’ option was ‘the whole class or group commenting on the work of a student’
135
(anonymous), which could be incorporated into category b). The full results are
displayed in Table 4.
Table 4. Percentage of faculty staff reporting student involvement in peer assessment
practices
Type of student involvement in
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Frequently
peer assessment (N= 41)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
‘Orally peer to peer’
80.5
7.3
0
12.2
‘Orally in groups’
70.7
2.4
24.4
2.4
‘Written peer to a peer’
90.3
2.4
4.0
2.4
‘Given written comments in
82.9
4.9
9.8
2.4
‘Give a grade to another student’
82.9
4.9
9.8
2.4
‘Giving a grade in groups’
87.9
7.3
2.4
2.4
groups’
In an attempt to establish what types of peer-assessment practices were used, the
same question was included in the survey for students (Q. A8). The same six options
provided in the survey for faculty staff appeared on the survey for students.
Additionally, there was space for the respondents to include ‘other’ types of peer
assessment practices if the options provided did not cover the peer assessment
practices used in their departments/sections.
The results show that the frequencies with which peer-assessment practices are
used in the assessment of students’ learning are quite low regarding all the options
presented to the students. Peer assessment in the form of ‘oral comments to a
student’s work’ was reported as being used ‘sometimes’ and ‘frequently’ by 8.4% of
the respondents and being engaged in ‘oral peer assessment in a group’ was reported
as being used ‘sometimes’ and ‘frequently’ by 6.5% of the respondents. The option to
provide ‘other’ types of activities that entailed peer-assessment was not utilised by
any of the students. The results are displayed in Table 5.
Table 5. Percentage of students reporting involvement in assessing work from their
classmates
136
Type of student involvement in
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Frequently
peer assessment (N= 138)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
‘Orally peer to peer’
87.6
4.3
7.2
0.7
‘Orally in groups”
89.8
3.6
6.5
0
‘Written peer to peer’
92.7
2.2
4.3
0.7
93.8
3.5
1.7
0.7
‘Give a grade to another student’
89.8
5.8
3.6
0.7
‘Giving a grade in groups’
95.0
2.9
1.4
0.7
‘Given
written
comments
in
groups’
Views of faculty and students on student involvement peer assessment practices:
Qualitative data.
Faculty staff and students’ views, in favour and against the involvement of
students in collaborative assessment, were sought from qualitative data arising from
the two surveys and from the interviews conducted with faculty staff. Due to space
constraints, only a brief summary of the findings is presented.
In general, faculty staff and students alike were quite favourable to the idea of
students being involved in the assessment of their own learning, as demonstrated by
84.2% of faculty staff replying ‘yes’ to that question (Q. A6) and 52.2% of the
students ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ with the idea (Q. A9). Sample quotations of
views in favour of student involvement in the assessment of their learning are
presented in Table 6.
137
Table 6. Reasons given by faculty staff and students in favour of the involvement of students in the assessment of their learning
Reason
Sample views from faculty
Sample views from the students
Increases student motivation
“It builds on their motivation and engagement”
“You are more likely motivated to learn” (C.29)
(S27)
“It could provide more motivation to do well”
(F.92)
Fosters students’ awareness of their
“Students become more aware of issues, be they
“Students can identify mistakes, rectify them and
strengths and limitations
linguistic or structural” (S8)
improve” (C.37)
“In correcting and reviewing our work, we have
to look more closely to find mistakes, which helps
us remember them better” (F.95)
Contributes to greater student autonomy
“Students take more responsibility for their
and responsibility
learning” (S11)
“In order to achieve the independent learning of the
student” (S32)
Makes students aware of what is required
“Find this an excellent method of getting students
“It could prove interesting to understand how
to understand criteria of assessment” (S41)
marks are gained or lost” (C.34)
138
Although the majority of faculty staff and students were in favour of the idea of
students being involved in the assessment of their own learning, it should be noted
that a significant minority of faculty (37.8%) and of students (29.6%) gave reasons
against the idea (see summary in Table 7). Only 15.8% of faculty staff were of the
opinion that they did not believe that students should be involved in the assessment of
their own learning (Q. A6) and 9.4% of students ‘disagreed’ or ‘strongly disagreed’
with the statement that ‘students should be involved in the assessment of their
learning’ (Q. A9). Sample quotations of views against student involvement in the
assessment of their learning are presented in Table 7.
139
Table 7. Reasons given by faculty staff and students against the involvement of students in the assessment of their learning
Reason
Sample views from faculty
Only faculty are qualified and students
“I believe students are, largely, immature for such “It is up to the qualified faculty to assess work
(D.64)
assessment” (S1)
don’t have the knowledge
Sample views from the students
“Formal assessment is what the lecturer is there to “Students are neither experts in the language nor
experts in assessment. They do not have a
do” (S38)
knowledge of university requirements” (G.133)
“Students would be biased towards each others
Peer assessment is biased
work” (C.31)
“If other students are involved, then it can
Produces classroom anxiety
become embarrassing for the student” (C.44)
General reluctance
“Not sure how this could work” (S33)
“I have mixed feelings” (S21)
“Not in third level education” (S36)
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Discussion
This study focused on how broadly undergraduate students of Hispanic Studies
programs are involved in assessing the work of their peers. The findings show that
there is very limited involvement of students in assessment that entails collaboration
with their peers.
The six categories given to the participants (faculty staff and students) on
different forms of collaborative assessment go from formative practices - orally or in
writing form - to the grading of work which in many cases has a summative function.
For the purpose of the author’s study, results under categories b) and d) (i.e. students
working in groups are engaged in assessing the work of their classmates, see p. 7), are
the most relevant because of their formative function. However, it may be appropriate
to start by implementing categories a) and c) (i.e. when one student is involved in
assessing the work of another peer on a one-to-one basis) so as to build trust among
students in how to assess the work of another classmate. Great care needs to be taken
in the process of involving learners in their own assessment if it is to be successful.
The building of trust among students and between the teacher and the learners
(Carless, 2009) is essential to create an atmosphere where collaborative assessment
can take place. As suggested in the literature (Hernández, 2007b, 2012; Price &
O’Donovan, 2006; Sambell, et al., 2006), the involvement of students in the
understanding and development of assessment criteria appears to have a very positive
effect in helping them to internalise the criteria which is an essential step towards the
involvement of students in the process of collaborative assessment. For further details
on how to involve students in the development and understanding of assessment
criteria see Hernández (2007b; 2012).
A further analysis of the six categories listed in Table 4 indicates that although
the use of collaborative assessment is limited, faculty staff appear to be using
collaborative assessment practices with formative functions ‘sometimes’ and
‘frequently’ in oral (26.8%) or written (12.2%) group activities. This is encouraging
as it indicates that faculty staff seem to be aware of the significance of collaborative
assessment to support student learning. Data from the students (Table 5) on the other
hand, is less conclusive as the involvement of students in collaborative assessment
‘sometimes’ and ‘frequently’ is very low in each of the categories. Although it is
encouraging that collaborative assessment appears to be used somewhat in the context
141
of oral activities, the results from this study suggest that there is still a long way to go
before collaborative assessment could be a reality in Hispanic Studies.
From an analysis of the qualitative data, it appears that the majority of faculty
staff and students are in favour of students being involved in the assessment of their
own learning. Both groups commented that the participation of students in the
assessment process makes students more aware of their strengths and limitations and
provides a better understanding of the assessment criteria and the standard required of
them. These findings concur with those of Hernández (2007b). As indicated above,
another reason given by academics in favour of student involvement in assessment is
that it increases motivation for learning, contributing to greater responsibility and
autonomy on their part for their learning. This supports similar findings by McDowell
and Sambell (1999) who reported that peer assessment gave students more
responsibility and autonomy to take control of their learning. Students in the present
study, however, did not believe that involvement in their assessment significantly
enhanced their responsibility or autonomy. However, they reported that their
involvement in the assessment process encouraged them to act on the feedback
received. The findings suggest that both academics and students recognise the
significant benefits of the involvement of students in the process of assessment.
When looking at the views of faculty staff and students against student
involvement in collaborative assessment, both groups expressed the opinion that only
faculty staff are qualified to assess student learning. In the case of faculty staff, their
reluctance to involve students in the assessment process was attributed to a number of
factors including a belief that it was not appropriate in third level education to engage
students in this practice and were unsure about how it would work, questioning the
ability of students to assess their own work. In line with Sambell et al.’s study (2006),
it must be acknowledged that students need training and preparation to successfully
participate in collaborative assessment. Students require guided activities to support
them in the development of peer assessment during the early stages of their university
studies.
Students were more explicit in expressing their views against student
involvement in collaborative assessment; they perceived peer assessment as biased
and that assessing each other would be embarrassing and stressful. The reluctance
expressed by faculty staff and students to be involved in peer assessment practices
may be the result of tradition and beliefs about how assessment should be approached.
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These views reinforce the idea of a teacher-led approach to assessment and give
faculty staff total control of assessment practices with students being mere recipients
of assessment practices decided by their teachers. Although these results are not
particularly unique to this study, they demonstrate the need to address faculty staff
and students’ perceptions about student’s ability to assess their work and to provide
the necessary steps to facilitate collaborative assessment. Numerous case studies on
collaborative assessment in higher education that support this practice can be found in
the literature (see for example an edited collection by O’Neill, Huntley-More and
Race, 2007 or McDowell et al., 2005). Two case studies in which collaborative
assessment is a driver of student learning are described below. They are from the
author’s experience of teaching in higher education.
Collaborative assessment activities: case studies
Case Study 1: Assessment of group presentations done in groups (orally).
Level 2 students of Spanish (undergraduate students generally take modules at
Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3) enrolled in a business language module work in groups
to develop a business project. A peer-assessment activity is used earlier in the
semester to train students on how to assess oral work presented by the groups working
on the project. A set of criteria is agreed upon among the students and the teacher and
is used to assess a five-minute oral presentation on one aspect of the group project.
There are generally five working groups with four or five students in each group, as
the total number of students taking this module ranges between 20 and 25 each year.
When all the groups have completed their presentations, which are also videorecorded so that students can obtain a copy of their group presentation, each group is
given an opportunity to express their views orally on each of five short presentations
delivered. The aim of the exercise is to reflect on how to improve the final
presentation of their group at the end of the semester. This activity appears to be a
beneficial way of involving students in the assessment of their work in a nonthreatening manner. Each group is able to see for themselves the aspects of their
presentation that need to be improved (e.g. content, coordination of group work, use
of slides, oral skills in Spanish, time management) when they compare their
presentation with the presentations given by the other groups. The students perceive
this activity positively and they are enthusiastic to provide comments on the
presentations. They appear to benefit more from reflecting in groups about their
143
presentation, having seen the presentations of all the groups, than if the teacher tells
them the criteria that would be used to assess the presentations of the group projects
but are not allowed to apply the criteria on their own work.
Case study 2: Assessment of written texts done in groups (orally and in
written form).
Undergraduate students of Spanish enrolled in a Level 3 language module
complete a written task individually (in Spanish) outside the classroom. Students are
requested to submit the stories typed in a Word document format. The teacher
removes the names of the students from the texts and gives each story an ID from 1 to
25 (or whatever is the total number of texts submitted). The teacher reads the stories
and organises them in six sets - four/five stories in each set - ensuring that in each set
there is a mixture of stories whose quality is excellent, good, adequate or poor. Only
the teacher knows who the authors of the stories are.
Then, the students are involved in a peer-assessment activity in class. The teacher
divides students into six groups and the task of each group is to act as the jury of the
stories by agreeing on classifying the stories according to their quality by applying the
assessment criteria that has been adopted to assess previous tasks. The teacher ensures
that the members of the groups are different from those whose stories are distributed
so that none of the stories allocated to them belongs to any member of the group. By
doing so, not only is anonymity ensured but it also allows students to engage in the
assessment process without being embarrassed by confronting them with the
assessment of their own story in a public domain. An amount of class time is
allocated to reporting orally from each group. One of the students in each group acts
as spokesperson on behalf of the group and he/she has to report to the rest of the class
the recommendations of the group. Each group also provides a written report on each
story commenting on positive features and providing recommendations to the
anonymous author on what could be improved. This peer-assessment activity is nonthreatening because the names of the students have been removed from the
assignments. Students do not express any fears in providing comments on anonymous
assignments (Hernández, 2007c).
Conclusion
144
This study has shown that faculty staff and students seem to be in favour of the
idea of involving students in the assessment of their learning. However, both groups
reported a limited use of practices where students are involved in the assessment of
their learning. The perception by both groups that assessment is something that should
be controlled by the experts must be challenged, as there is evidence from the
literature that students are capable of assessing their own work if they are provided
with the right conditions to do so. The historical tradition of assessment for grading
and certification seems to be a barrier in moving towards practices of assessment with
greater involvement of students in developing skills to assess the value of their work.
Those perceptions suggest that faculty staff need to introduce practices involving
collaborative assessment that do not necessarily entail grading for summative
purposes; only then may students achieve a greater awareness of their ability to assess
their own work and to appreciate its value in enhancing their learning.
Shifting the beliefs of faculty staff and students about the benefits of
collaborative assessment will take time. This shift implies sharing power between
faculty staff and students, fostering engagement and working towards students taking
responsibility for their own assessment. In addition, preparing students to get involved
in the development of assessment criteria, and building student confidence in their
ability to assess their work are not easy tasks for faculty staff. Case studies
documenting how students can be involved in the process of assessment provide
opportunities for faculty staff to familiarise themselves with existing practices in
which students are involved in collaborative assessment. Besides, faculty staff that
wish to introduce collaborative assessment practices but lack the necessary
pedagogical knowledge could participate in workshops that address how to develop
collaborative assessment tasks and their implementation. Furthermore, the creation of
communities of practice at the departmental/section level would provide the context
in which academics could share their practices with each other and encourage others
to introduce collaborative assessment practices. Communities of practice have the
potential to support faculty staff in the implementation of classroom practices. In
addition, communities of practice could provide the context for faculty staff to engage
in research activities such as action-based research and/or practitioner enquiry studies
that would contribute to institutional change in the areas of pedagogy and in the
scholarship of assessment.
145
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Chapter Eight
Examining the assessment opportunities for cultural connectedness for student
learning: A sociocultural analysis
Val Klenowski
Stephen Connolly
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Robert Funnell
Griffith University, Australia
ABSTRACT
The disparity that exists between the highest and lowest achievers together with
deficit approaches to teaching, learning and assessment raise serious equity issues
related to fairness, validity, culture and access, which were analysed in a recent
Australian Research Council funded project. This chapter explores the potential that
exists for teachers to work with Indigenous Teacher Assistants (ITAs) to secure
cultural connectedness in teaching, learning and assessment of Indigenous students.
The study was a design experiment, which was conducted in seven Catholic and
Independent primary schools in northern Queensland and involved semi-structured
focus group interviews with Year 4 and 6 Indigenous students, principals, teachers
and Indigenous Teacher Assistants. Classroom observations and document analyses
were also conducted. This corpus of data was analysed using a sociocultural
theoretical lens.
The use of a sociocultural analysis helped to identify cultural
influences, Indigenous students’ funds of knowledge and values. The information
from this analysis was made explicit to teachers to demonstrate how they could
enhance their pedagogic and assessment practices by embracing and extending the
cultural spaces for learning and teaching of Indigenous students. The way in which
teachers construct their interactions for greater cultural connectedness and enhanced
learning would appear to rely on relationship building with Indigenous staff,
Indigenous students’ cultural knowledge, and improved understanding of assessment
and related equity issues.
Key Words: fairness; assessment; sociocultural analysis; Indigenous education;
inclusive education
150
Introduction
This chapter draws on a mathematics education research project centred on
teachers’ assessment and pedagogy in classrooms inclusive of some Indigenous
Australian (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) students to explore how such
classroom practices could be more culturally responsive. The study aimed to provide
greater understanding about how to build more equitable assessment to address the
issue of underperforming Indigenous students in regional and remote Australia, and to
open up increased opportunities for Indigenous students to achieve success. While
seeking to identify assessment practices that are fair and culturally responsive the
project sought to understand the necessary pedagogical changes required of teachers.
Although the main study included an exploration of the attitudes, beliefs and
responses of Indigenous students to assessment in the context of mathematics
learning, this chapter focuses on teachers and Indigenous Teacher Assistants (ITA)
and their classroom practices. Indigenous Teacher Assistant is used throughout this
chapter although other terms that are frequently used are Indigenous Education
Worker (IEW) and Indigenous Education Aide (IEA).
Currently, Indigenous students underachieve in mathematics in schools where the
conditions are unsupportive as the mathematics teachers are generally inexperienced
(Warren, Baturo & Cooper, 2010) and there are limited family capital and resources
in these regions. Such conditions are not evident where above average performance
in national standardised tests is achieved. It is our proposition that when teachers
are supported to understand the importance of cultural awareness, intercultural
relationships, code-switching to access mathematical language and use cultural
examples of mathematical concepts, this combination of understanding promotes
energy generating factors that contribute to cultural responsive pedagogy for more
socially just outcomes. We argue that the potential for more cultural responsive
pedagogy and assessment requires productive working relationships with the
students first and foremost, and second with the Indigenous community via the ITA.
Productive working relationships comprise processes and pedagogic practices that
support learning and include content knowledge, knowledge of learners, diagnostic
strategies, high expectations, and an ethic of care. The role of the ITA is little
151
understood and requires teachers to rethink their working relationships in
classrooms, which forms a tenet of our argument.
We begin with contextual background regarding the sub-field of Indigenous
Education within the Australian field of education. In particular, we provide the
policy context of influential discourses. An overview of the research project and
explanation of the methodology of a design experiment follow. In the discussion we
unveil taken-for-granted approaches within classroom practices and illustrate how
ITAs can help to fulfill an important role as mediators between Indigenous cultures,
including Indigenous students’ funds of knowledge and teachers’ classroom
assessment and learning practices.
BACKGROUND
This chapter is derived from research conducted at seven schools in regional
Queensland, Australia. Our focus is on the relationships within the classrooms that
drive everyday practice, and through which a range of responses are developed to the
mediating sociological factors present in all classrooms at all times. Factors which
became most evidently influential in our research were found to emanate from two
distinct cultures positioned within the sub-field of Indigenous Education within the
Australian field of education; one, the socially positioned culture of Australian
schools, and two, the cultural position of Indigenous students attending the schools
involved in the study.
Sadly the old cliché a clash of cultures is an apt description of the situation
encountered. Despite government rhetoric and the best intentions of some (though not
all) school staff to engage Indigenous students in the standardised, Westernised and
White (Hickling-Hudson, 2005; Moreton-Robinson, 1999) form of education
prescribed by government curriculums, many of the Indigenous students in our study
were unable to assimilate successfully with school culture, or succeed in terms of
“legitimate” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990, p. 162) educational attainment. We found
that the majority of Indigenous students in the classrooms we observed were not
provided with the sociocultural tools or ways of participation to fully engage with and
comprehend the intentions of the teachers and school staff, not necessarily in terms of
grasping the nature of prescribed educational content, but more in terms of not being
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able to access the privileged language, which refers to the legitimate and recognised
discourses of the school culture.
For some of these students English is a second (or third, or fourth) language and
so some difficulties with translation were experienced, but the greater barrier to
understanding was the culturally situated structure of classroom discourses and the
mismatch of meanings and understandings generated by culturally specific language
and terminologies. In this sense, the problem of a breakdown in classroom interaction
resides in understanding, both what teachers understand to be effective practices of
communication and the actual understanding or reading of those practices by
Indigenous students. This disconnection of dialogue exposes the inconsistency
between sociocultural positioning of teachers and students in classroom settings and
emphasises the often incompatible nature of interaction processes initiated by
teachers. Following is a description of the discourses and structures that constitute the
school culture and the teachers’ habitus (Bourdieu, 2007) in the present study.
The schools involved in this research contribute to the various discourses that
structure theory, policy, and practice of Indigenous education in Australia. By this we
mean the various approaches, methods, regulations, and conceptualisations of
teaching Indigenous students in Australian schools. Following Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd’s Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples in 2008, all Australian
governments “adopted a new approach and committed to six ambitious, long term,
Closing the Gap targets which aim to bridge the divide between Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians in life expectancy, educational achievement and employment
opportunities” (DEEWR, 2008, p. iii). Of the six targets the Department of Education,
Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) has key responsibility for the
following:
1. to ensure all Indigenous four year olds in remote communities have access to
early childhood education within five years;
2. to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for
Indigenous children within a decade;
3. to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 attainment or equivalent
attainment rates by 2020; and
153
4. to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians within a decade. (DEEWR, 2012)
DEEWR’s commitment to these responsibilities has been documented in several
Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) publications (DEEWR, 2009, 2011a) and several
evaluative reports have been generated from Australian Government Indigenous
Education programs (Australian Government, 2008, 2011; DEEWR, 2008, 2010,
2011b). Thus, the field of Australian Indigenous education is largely developed from,
and regulated by, Government RAP initiatives and reporting instruments. This
approach to policy instigation and management is homologous with the Australian
Government’s development of nationalised standardised education and assessment
which has seen the development of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and
Numeracy (NAPLAN), the My School website and the Australian Curriculum.
A particular student interaction, teaching and learning context exists for teachers
and staff at the seven schools included within this study; these schools are entrenched
in the DEEWR Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and at the same time accountable
for the prescriptive participation requirements of NAPLAN and the introduction of
the Australian Curriculum. These government initiatives are supported by funding,
however budget allocations are constrained and regulated by accountability and
reporting.
Apple (2005) discusses the exponential expansion of commodifying logics in relation
to worldwide trends in education and uses the term audit culture to describe a global
phenomenon of the “odd combination of marketization on the one hand and
centralization of control on the other” (p. 382). He maintains that the prominent
discourses and basic assumptions that generate and foster neoliberal, neoconservative,
and new managerial forms have profoundly influenced not only institutions but even
our better judgement.
This form of audit culture has been fostered by successive Australian Governments
(Liberal Party 1996 – 2007; Australian Labor Party 2007 – present) which have
prioritised standards and school/staff evaluation as a means of measuring school
performance and regulating funding (Connell, 2009). In the pursuit of raising
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achievement levels to compete in international scaling reports, such as the Program
for International Student Assessment (PISA), Government policies have focused on
standardised education and assessment as the catalyst for improved student outcomes
in schools (Rawolle & Lingard, 2008; Reid, 2011). Achieving these increases has
become a prescriptive and systematised policy directive in schools, shaping
discourses in classrooms, teaching and learning practices, and school leadership
structures and responsibilities (Ball, Hoskins, Maguire, & Braun, 2011). Bartlett,
Knight and Lingard (1992) described reforms in education as subsumed within a
“national metapolicy of corporate federalism which is an amalgam of beliefs or
discourses including neocorporatism, economic rationalism, corporate managerialism
and human capital” (p. 19). As Connell (2009) points out, the various state produced
professional standards documents are laden with the language of “corporate
managerialism; ‘challenges’, ‘goals’, ‘stakeholders’, ‘partnerships’, ‘strategies’,
‘commitment’, ‘capacity’, ‘achievable’, ‘effective’, ‘flexible’, and ‘opportunities’”
(pp. 219-220). This structuring of the Australian field of education is constituted
according to the logical principles (Bourdieu, 1977,1990, 1998; Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1990) of evaluation and accountability, which have mediated classroom
relationships.
All Australian states and territories have recently become concerned with teacher
accountability (Connell, 2009). Teacher and school accountability often causes
teachers and school-administrators concern due to institutional dispositions towards
evaluation. Teachers often feel uneasy about ambiguity in prescriptive practice
demands and uncertainty of future demands in government prioritised educational
initiatives (Conley & Glasman, 2008). School administrators may experience pressure
concerning the multiple and often conflicting priorities and demands of their work
and can be stressed by perceived workloads and deadlines (Pounder & Merrill, 2001).
Nevertheless, Australian governments see the implementation of professional
evaluation as a means of both justifying budget allocation and ensuring student
performance in league tables and national performance in PISA.
These are the contextual issues of the current study. Teachers and students were
engaging in discourses underpinned by Australian government education reforms and
couched in the euphemistic language of equal opportunity and management through
155
accountability and evaluation. We found teachers were struggling in classroom
situations to make sense of the DEEWR’s teaching approaches prescribed by
Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) initiatives in light of their perceived
responsibilities towards an audit culture which is permeating schools across Australia.
Classroom contexts are conflicted by educational systems which both group students
in a one-size-fits-all approach to assessment and outcomes, and also only recognise
and reward individual performances in terms of awarding legitimate cultural capital.
DEEWR advocates close relationships and understanding of student needs in RAP
documents yet many teachers have not received adequate training to effectively make
these connections with Indigenous students.
Moreover, this study found that Western-White values were most often the cultural
aesthetic of school work and school discourses produced in classroom sites. WesternWhite cultural capital regulates the exchange rates within the schools and Indigenous
habitus is misrecognised. The identification of a view of Indigeneity couched in
euphemistic discourses of remedial approaches to language assimilation, and indeed
cultural assimilation, mediated school culture and classroom discourses. Teachers
with good intentions may strive to include students in the cultural literacy and
culturally specific funds of knowledge of the classroom, but have not had the
professional training, nor the cultural experience to provide for effective or proficient
inclusion processes within the classroom. There are degrees of proficiency and
experience but on the whole teachers’ classroom practices are mediated by an audit
culture, are largely driven by dispositions external to classroom settings, and
consequently are falling short of full empathetic recognition, acceptance and inclusion
of students from non-dominant cultural backgrounds in the classroom.
OVERVIEW
This project was an Industry Linkage program funded by the Australian Research
Council, conducted in seven Catholic and Independent primary schools in northern
Queensland with industry partners: Catholic Education and the Association of
Independent Schools, Queensland. The research problem related to the patterns of
under-achievement by Indigenous students as reflected in national benchmark
databases such as National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN)
and international testing programs like the Trends in International Mathematics and
156
Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment
(PISA). A trend of underperformance in terms of equity has continued over the past
six years as is evident from the comparative analyses of PISA results, first
administered in 2000, in 2003, in 2006 and again in 2009.
We explored the teaching conditions and organisation of assessment in the seven
schools where the performance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students varied and
fluctuated. The perspectives of senior staff, ITAs, and teachers who were teaching at
least some Indigenous students were analysed. The number of Indigenous students in
relation to the rest of the school’s student population in these research schools varied
from 5%, 6%, 7% (in two schools), 13%, 21% to 100%. In the latter school, 92% of
these Indigenous students had Languages Other Than English (inclusive of a mix of
first, second and possibly third languages).
A sociocultural conceptual framework was adopted to explain why and how
variations in achievement might occur and this perspective helped to focus the study
on factors such as the students’ language and their sociocultural and socioeconomic
circumstances. From a sociocultural perspective, learning is viewed as occurring as
part of our everyday experience as we participate in the world. This theory of learning
does not view a separation between contexts where learning occurs and contexts for
everyday life, rather these are seen as different opportunities for learning (Murphy,
Hall, McCormick & Drury, 2008). It is important to move away from the notion that
the individual is the determinant of learning and begin to focus on the activities that
they engage in and the actions that they undertake using the resources and tools
available. As Murphy and colleagues (2008, p. 7) stress when they cite McDermott
(1996) “… we can only learn what is around to learn.” From this sociocultural view
of learning the students’ sense of belonging in a classroom of learners is important
and raises the issue of access not only to learning experiences but also to assessment
tasks designed to develop the Indigenous students’ understanding by increasing their
participation.
METHODOLOGY
The project was a design experiment (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003) about
fairness in educational assessment. This research design has been used extensively by
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educators in medium-scale curriculum innovation in United States schools (Cobb,
Confrey, di Sessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003) and was developed at Vanderbilt,
Washington and University of California, Berkeley. It combines a rigorous approach
to data collected on the effects of an intervention from programme development
through action research. The intervention in this study was a professional
development programme of pedagogical and assessment change that was reviewed
and revised in light of new empirical evidence of the intended and unintended effects.
This section reflects on how the intervention was framed and the discussion provides
an analysis of emergent themes with a particular focus on cultural connectedness,
theoretically informed by the sociocultural perspective adopted. In this study, a
sociocultural framing to the design experiment resulted in a more qualitative case
study approach.
This design experiment was predominantly qualitative drawing on a number of data
sources. These included: 1) detailed analyses of NAPLAN data of the Year 4 and 6
Indigenous students’ responses (completed when they were in Year 3 and 5 of the
previous year) from the seven focus schools; 2) an analysis of socio-cultural factors
which might influence their scores (such as cultural specificity of how the item or
question was framed, the linguistic codes and conventions of the test, culturalspecificity of content knowledge, possible misinterpretation of questions); 3)
interview data about the relations between each school and the Indigenous students
and families; 4) interview data of the cultural and pedagogic understandings that ITAs
bring into classrooms; and, 5) interview data of the attitudes and dispositions of Year
4 and 6 teachers and senior staff to Indigenous students and their learning.
Several iterative cycles of design and development to classroom intervention were
involved in this design experiment (Brown, 1992; Kelly, 2003). Three schools and
eight teachers were involved in the first phase. There were two teachers from two
schools (a Year 4 and Year 6 teacher from each, one of the latter has a Year 6/7 class)
and four from the third school (two Year 4 and two Year 6 teachers). The teachers
were in schools where the Indigenous student population varied from 5%, 7% to 21%.
In total the number of Indigenous students was 22 (14 Year 4 students and 8 Year 6
students). During this phase the professional learning program was developed and
refined to consider how assessment could be made fairer for the Indigenous students.
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The second phase involved the extension of the professional learning programme to
four other schools with Indigenous student populations ranging from 6%, 7%, 13% to
100% and a further eight teachers. In this second phase there was a move away from
the didactic, ‘telling’ approach which characterised the first phase to an approach
which involved working more closely with teachers and ITAs in their classrooms.
Each school principal and the Year 4 and 6 teachers involved in the project received
the detailed summaries of each Indigenous student’s responses to the NAPLAN tests
taken the year before they entered Year 4 or Year 6. Each question was analysed so
that teachers could check each student’s answers to the different mathematical
strands. The descriptive analysis of each answer aimed to support a more
comprehensive understanding of the underlying concept and to suggest the next steps
to be taken to support the student’s development in the identified mathematical
conception or misconception.
Semi-structured focus group interviews were carried out with the Year 4 and 6
Indigenous students. Interviews were conducted with principals and with Indigenous
staff (e.g. ITAs, community liaison staff, education workers) to gain a broad view of
cultural influences and values that affect the dispositions of Indigenous students’
learning, particularly in relation to mathematics. The background information from
these interviews has been analysed further to augment data from the individual
NAPLAN test results. As would be expected, Indigenous and non-Indigenous
students scored across a continuum of band levels. Further data analyses and
reconsideration of interview data resulted in the shift of focus to culture-responsive
assessment and pedagogy. Given that an aim of the project was to understand factors
and school conditions that affect teachers’ assessment and pedagogic capacity and to
scaffold and extend Indigenous students’ mathematical understandings, the discussion
section of this chapter centers on analyses of the interview data which highlight the
value and potential for cultural connectedness.
Data from each school was collated and combined to identify beliefs, attitudes and
practices. All interviews were transcribed and analysed according to the factors that
impact on teachers’ assessment and pedagogic capacity and understandings of fair
assessment practice. This initial analysis and categorisation was further analysed
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using the software program Leximancer to identify dominant words, phrases and
themes. These emergent themes were again compared and critically analysed for
validity purposes. From a sociocultural frame it is acknowledged that a multiplicity of
factors influence views including historical, social and cultural assumptions that
underpin responses. The data analysis on which this chapter is based revealed a
continuum of practice from a prevalence of deficit discourse, low expectations for
Indigenous success and limited understanding of cultural responsiveness in pedagogy
or assessment to increased cultural awareness and substantive attempts to engage with
ITAs to embrace cultural spaces.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
It became evident from the data analyses that although teachers want the best for their
students, they continue to use teaching and assessment strategies that do not recognise
the cultural variations of their Indigenous students and do not appear aware of how
these differences mediate the Indigenous students’ learning and assessment outcomes.
The majority of teachers (14 or 87.5%) interviewed indicated that they felt Indigenous
students should be treated and taught in the same way as everyone else. For example,
teachers often stated we teach Indigenous students “the same way we do everybody
else.” These conditions for socialisation operated in parallel with Indigenous identity
formation. At all levels it was said that we “keep things the same (for them) as for the
others… the same tests, the same method of teaching”. Another typical comment
from one of the teachers interviewed was:
They [Indigenous students] are included in everything … there are kids who
struggle a lot more … So the focus is to promote learning for all regardless of
their cultural background.
Similar to other studies (Warren et al.,2010; Cooper, Baturo & Warren, 2005) also
found that the majority of teachers had very little professional development or teacher
preparation in relation to Indigenous cultural awareness. To illustrate, when asked if
there was any support or professional development this teacher responded:
Yes, I think so, a few years ago. I can’t remember what …
Another common Non-Indigenous teacher’s response:
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I haven’t had a great deal of experience [with Indigenous students]. They’re
very quiet. They don’t tend to ask questions so you have to be asking them
more…
It was also apparent that ITAs had received limited training in how to assist teachers
in supporting Indigenous students’ education. Both Non-Indigenous and Indigenous
staff expressed a keen interest in gaining further understanding.
Deficit Discourse
Internationally, an important understanding of cultural difference has occurred in that
there has been a shift from a deficit view of the learner to a more considered view of
how the school or the system can take responsibility for the development of culturally
responsive models and quality teaching programmes that incorporate formative
assessment (Ainscow, 2010; Comber & Kamler, 2004; Bishop, O’Sullivan, &
Berryman, 2010; Mahuika, Berryman and Bishop, 2011). Too often teachers or
principals will indicate that very little can be done to improve the achievement of
Indigenous students with explanations for low achievement directed at the student, the
student’s home circumstances or outside of school experiences. For example in our
study one principal had this to say:
He’s the boy who turned up with a stab wound. The little brother, I expelled,
came to school with major ear infections, … mum was sending him to school.
Wasn’t even taking him to the doctor. She couldn’t care less... She was caught
up in all these relationships and she was thinking about herself, you know the
kids had no food …
Teachers too were expressing deficit views as evident here:
Looking at the ones I have at the moment, they’re all from either a broken
home or, one in particular is with, what they call, a nanny. So she’s the
mother’s aunty. So there’s not a traditional family setting and the parents that I
have met, I’m not sure what their approach to academics is … school’s
somewhere where you just go for the day and I think that can affect your
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approach to our academic ... If it’s just somewhere you are for the day your
level of skills, the effort that you put in isn’t necessarily a valuable thing.
The teachers’ comments time and again were indicative of their habitus inculcated
with the rhetoric of standardisation and a school audit culture. This contextual field of
the teachers was seen as mediating classroom discourses and dispositions, which
tended to result in misrecognition of the student habitus. As expressed by Mahuika,
Berryman and Bishop, (2011, p.189) in relation to the teachers of their review “…
teachers pathologised Mãori students’ lived experiences by explaining their lack of
educational achievement in deficit terms as something within the child or the child’s
home” with the consequence of “the creation of negative and problematic
relationships between teachers and Mãori students; lowered teacher expectations of
Mãori students’ abilities; and a loss of an appreciation of how powerful agentic
teachers can be in bringing about change in learning outcomes for students previously
denied access to the benefits that education has to offer.” These authors emphasise
how teachers who adopt this view tend to blame someone or something beyond their
influence and in so doing suggest that they are unable to take responsibility for the
outcomes of these influences.
As apparent from our analysis some teachers and principals saw the Indigenous
students’ home circumstances or the Indigenous students’ parents as the cause for the
students’ lack of achievement at school. Such talk of outcomes, comparative
achievement and expectations also reflects the discourse of an audit culture. Evidence
of lower expectations for Indigenous students was an issue raised by ITAs, for
example:
When the new principal came I had a talk with him and our Indigenous
students are under the Learning Support banner. He did have a speech to us,
… the aides and the support staff, and said we don’t have high expectations
for our Learning Support students We don’t have high expectations. They just
need to know how to function in society, but they don’t need to write a great
essay. I thought mm, okay. So I was ready to get up and leave then and I
thought, no, if I leave who is going to fight for them. So that’s why I stayed
and slowly but surely I think things have improved, slowly, but they are not to
where they were.
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Schools and teachers need to develop their capacity to identify “deficit views of
difference” (Ainscow, 2009, p.6) which position students as ”lacking in something”
(p. 6) These assumptions that relate to notions of deficit regarding difference are
challenged from a sociocultural perspective of learning and assessment that gives
greater respect to the valuing of difference. A diagnostic and holistic view of the
student’s background, culture, language and demeanour, is seen as more beneficial for
the teacher to gain a better understanding from their use of formative assessment to
identify the student’s learning needs. Assessment and pedagogy that is responsive to
cultural variations and that helps to build supportive relationships between teachers
and their students acknowledges that culture is central to learning. Indigenous
students who are supported to draw on their ‘funds of knowledge’ (Moll, 1992, p. 21)
or what they know, or their ways of sense making from their culture, gain in terms of
classroom learning. Teaching and assessment that is culture responsive and allows
for different ways of knowing facilitates increased agency for Indigenous students.
Culture inclusive assessment does not attempt to favour different cultural groups,
rather it is recognised that cultural differences can impact on performance, such as on
standardised tests.
The way in which teachers construct their interactions for greater cultural
connectedness and enhanced learning relies on relationship building with Indigenous
staff, with Indigenous students’ cultural knowledge and improved understanding of
assessment and related equity issues. How greater cultural connectedness could be
achieved emerged from critical analyses of the interview data of the ITAs.
Relationship Building
Non-Indigenous teacher aides indicated that Indigenous students were not being
properly socialized into the expectations of school life and for them the problem was
“not really [Indigenous students’] ability to be able to do the work: it's more the
behaviour side of it; the conforming to a structured system”. From this perception,
Indigenous culture is least likely to be a background for student identity formation
when non-conformity foregrounds assessment of their worth. Alternatively, where a
teacher sees Indigenous children as shy and “slow to join in”, an ITA sees the
problem as a collective issue rather than an individual one, in that “it’s peer pressure”
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at the centre of students “not being game to have a go”. From this ITA’s perspective,
“The peers are the main risk, more than any other.” The Indigenous child faces a
balancing act to do well and keep face at the same time: “If you get it wrong then you
get teased and stuff like that”. The ITAs are well positioned to pass on to the teachers
with whom they work understandings of Indigenous students’ attitudes and responses
in particular situations. However, fulfilling this essentially cultural function is only
one part of an equation, the other is the knowledge they derive about teaching
Indigenous students from their daily observations of classroom interactions. These
two dimensions of ITA’s work are now represented and discussed.
We draw on the interviews with two ITAs who work with Prep to Year 7 classes in a
school of around 350 students.
Kathryn, of Aboriginal descent, works with
Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in 15 classrooms. Sonia, from the Torres
Strait Islands, advises and teaches about Torres Strait Island culture and dance to both
Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Their names have been changed for ethical
reasons. Both women indicated: “Yes, this is a good school, we’re well looked after”.
As mothers, both women made comparisons with the education of their own children,
and what they considered to be cultural misunderstandings in the teaching of this
school. Each ITA enjoyed the contact with students, staff and parents and the chance
to “think I’ve melted that barrier a little bit”.
Contradictions in the ITAs’ roles were identified, however. Their comments could be
seen as criticisms if taken out of context, but they are in fact barriers that the ITAs
would like to surmount in an environment characterized as supportive of Indigenous
education and dedicated to education for all. The three key themes central to
relationship building and cultural connectedness relate to: code switching, cultural
understanding and mathematics, and furthering relations between Indigenous workers
and teachers. To illustrate one ITA explained in relation to code switching:
…our Indigenous boys, they can talk fine in the classroom but when it comes
to writing it’s in Pidgin English.
This excerpt illustrates a general misunderstanding of variations between
school/teacher language and the problems of switching codes for Indigenous students
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to accommodate set classroom tasks. Differences in Indigenous students’ language,
and the language used in classrooms, was an important consideration for the ITAs as
illustrated:
Sonia: I think language is one of the cultural barriers for them. I speak the
Torres Strait Creole the majority of the time at home with my kids and so
they’re based around that 100 per cent. When they’re in the community or
when they come to school they need to code switch and speak English …
sometimes when they deliver their answer in English it doesn’t come out right
but the teacher doesn’t understand.
Kathryn: … when it comes to writing it’s in Pidgin English. It’s the way we
understand it. The teachers, they come to us and say he’s got problems, he
can’t write a sentence right.
Hey, let’s think about the non-Indigenous
students, some of them can’t write a sentence properly. … It needs to be
accepted on both sides. You’ve got to understand how they talk at home. You
can’t stop that language from being spoken at home.
The benefits, opportunities and importance of working with an ITA, an Indigenous
teacher or community member cannot be underestimated. The two ITAs not only
brought fresh insights and challenged the deficit discourses evident in the school, but
they also provided opportunities for teachers to ‘see differently’ and for teachers to
challenge their own assumptions. It is in this way ITAs can perform an important role
to help remove barriers and to support opportunities for improved relationships. For
the students to have ITAs who demonstrate such understanding to allow them to
switch codes “just to give the kids a lift” is another important opportunity for
Indigenous students to feel as though they belong.
The importance of cultural understanding in the teaching of mathematics is made
explicit by the following ITAs:
No, they don’t like it [mathematics], they struggle. Most of them tell me that
‘I’m not good at maths’. I think it’s all off the board and onto a piece of
paper, more than hands on. Some of the teachers think the kids are going to
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play with the blocks but we want to teach them, show them that there’s an
easier way to understand hundreds, tens and ones. Our kids are more hands on.
Maths is a big up hurdle for a lot of Torres Strait kids. The new way of doing
simple addition is just so confusing … I see a lot of our teachers have a
teachers’ book that they carry in front of them when they do maths. They
refer back to that book the whole time. I find the children understand it but
they have a mental block... I have to ask, ‘Oh, can you go back, I lost you
there. Can we?’ … And they always go back which is good. Then I know
where I am.
A Torres Strait Islander teacher was saying how maths differs here … to the
remote where they are up in the Torres Strait. For example, if you are to ask a
child a question like how long does it take from Townsville to Cairns, he’ll tell
you in kilometres or in hours. Whereas if you’re asking a child in the Torres
Strait, how long does it take from Thursday Island to Badu Island he’ll tell you
how many petrol drums you need. Rather than the distance in kilometres and
hours - that is totally different.
These examples obviously provide insights into differences in the logics underlying
estimation and calculation between Torres Strait and European cultures. But in effect,
they are more likely to raise awareness than inform day-to-day teaching. The fact that
ITAs watch and learn as they work with students means they can integrate their
knowledge with that of a teacher. This can be seen in the case of an ITA who “looks
after Grades 3 and 4 kids who are struggling with either writing or reading or with the
sums they are doing”. Her views are insightful.
The concepts are beyond them, but with others it’s simple… there is a range –
some kids … are fairly advanced to the others who are struggling. I think it’s
sometimes reading is the hardest things to do in maths and ... I simplify it by
reading it to them again and ... it’s like having to sit and do it with them – they
stop if you walk away. There are a couple of kids, even after you do it two or
166
three times, they still stop, because they’re not understanding the real concept,
the fundamental concept ... but others who grasp it they just keep going. They
just go, ‘I’m alright Miss; you can go’.
In many ways the discourse adopted by this ITA(i.e. the tracing to concepts, linking
reading with the teaching of mathematics) are not significantly different from that of a
trained teacher assessing her practices. This being the case, questions need to be
posed about extending the roles of ITAs beyond that of cultural advisor to being
partners in teaching and learning. The action of extending the roles of ITAs is
fundamental to the establishment of powerful relations in the classroom such that they
are truly two-way. The non-Indigenous teacher and the ITA need to work together to
build important learning relationships for the Indigenous students in their classrooms
so that these students who are often in the minority truly feel as though they belong.
The irony in this study was that teachers and ITAs seemed to talk past each other.
Teachers reported that they heavily relied on the ITAs for cultural matters such as
reading body language, information about home life family and siblings. ITAs
thought teachers left them alone to prepare resources and work with difficult children
but did not ask their advice about problems in learning. In general, ITAs were not
confident in approaching the teachers as equals. A consideration of the possibilities
for extending ITAs’ relations with teachers as co-partners in furthering Indigenous
learning is evident from the suggestions made by two ITAs, Kathryn and Sonia. Both
women expressed some frustration about their relations with teachers as co-partners in
furthering Indigenous learning.
Kathryn: We get new teachers in every year so we have to guide them and say
this child here needs extra help; we know the children and who needs help and
who doesn’t need help. Sometime the teachers aren’t aware. They think that
children have a problem because they don’t know the work but teachers don’t
look at the background and what’s happening at home. I think that we might
not have that piece of paper that teachers have but we can educate the teachers
how to teach our children. That’s where we can come in.
167
Interviewer: You would like to be working together on how to teach kids?
Sonia: Yes, rather than you’re a teacher and I’m a teacher aide full stop. ‘I’ve
got the certificate and the number there on that certificate to say that I’m a
qualified teacher. I’ve been teaching for so many years’ sort of thing; and ‘you
do what I say’. We need to talk, have that conversation between one another.
We talk about children but not how to teach the children. Yes, you talk about
children that didn’t cope with it, they couldn’t do this, or what has so and so
done – ‘but what about how we’re going to teach them?’
CONCLUSION
As ITAs work with teachers they can model ways for them to embrace cultural spaces
of which they are not aware and thus enlarge their repertoire of strategies for
assessment and intervention. Working together affords an opportunity to enact
cultural connectedness and open up curriculum spaces and to examine taken-forgranted approaches within classroom practices. Herein lies a number of unexamined
assessment opportunities within existing practices which returns us to questions of
why ITAs are seldom called on to act as mediators between cultural and pedagogical
spaces.
The views of ITAs were valued for their fresh insights into practice and understanding
of teaching and learning mathematics. The ITAs in this study have a particular focus
on culture-responsive pedagogy and assessment, and possess knowledge teachers can
learn from to understand how Indigenous students’ funds of knowledge can be drawn
upon in activities that involve, for example, measurement and code switching.
Germane strategies such as problem solving, routine thinking and the impact of
language acquisition on students’ competencies to decode written assessment tasks
provide rich territory for further research and where the role of the ITA becomes
significant to realise the potential for relationship building.
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Chapter Nine
Student Pathways to Global Citizenship
Stephen Reysen
Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA
Iva Katzarska-Miller
Transylvania University, USA
Abstract
In the present chapter we review research examining global citizenship in educational
environments. As the world has become increasingly interconnected, educators are
tasked with revising their teaching approach and pedagogy to prepare students for a
vastly different world after school. Global citizenship education serves to engender
prosocial values (e.g., intergroup empathy and helping) and openness to new
experiences that equip students to engage with a globalized world. We define global
citizenship as global awareness, caring, embracing cultural diversity, promoting social
justice and sustainability, and a sense of responsibility to act. Past research (Reysen &
Katzarska-Miller, 2012) has shown that a greater perception that others have in one’s
normative environment (e.g., friends, family) prescribe being a global citizen and
global awareness (i.e., knowledge of the world and connection with others) predict
greater identification with global citizens (i.e., felt psychological connection with the
category global citizen). Global citizenship identification subsequently predicts
greater endorsement of prosocial values (i.e., intergroup empathy, valuing diversity,
social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and a felt
responsibility to act for the betterment of the world). In the present chapter we (1)
review past theory regarding global citizenship antecedents (normative environment,
global awareness) and outcomes (prosocial values), (2) review research showing the
influence of students’ normative environment and global awareness on global
citizenship identification and related prosocial values, and (3) propose practical
interventions that educators can take to enhance student learning based on the current
research.
Keywords: global citizenship, normative environment, global awareness, education,
social justice
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Student Pathways to Global Citizenship
As the world has become increasingly interconnected, institutions of higher
education have begun to revise university goals to focus on internationalizing
education (Maringe, 2010). An often-cited motivation by university administration to
internationalize the university is the promotion of values characterizing global
citizens (Fielden, 2006). The push for world, or global citizenship education
(educating with a global perspective) began in the UK in the 1920s, gained
momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, and eventually spread to the US in the 1990s
(Heater, 2000; Hicks, 2003). However, global citizenship education is still in its
infancy (Lewin, 2009) as universities struggle to define, conceptualize, and construct
programs with measurable outcomes or academic standards (Andrzejewski & Alessio,
1999; Pike, 2000; Sperandio, Grudzinski-Hall, & Stewart-Gambino, 2010). In the
present chapter we review past conceptions of global citizenship values and
antecedents to viewing the self as a global citizen, describe recent empirical research
showing the antecedents and outcomes of viewing the self as a global citizen, and
provide suggestions for educators who wish to engender global citizenship in
students.
Conceptions of Global Citizen Values
Global citizenship is theorized to relate to a variety of prosocial values.
Although some theorists highlight certain values and behaviors over others (e.g.,
Appiah (2006) highlights morality and ethics while Tarrant (2010) emphasizes
environmental sustainability), a review of global citizenship literature shows
consistent themes. The result of a thematic review of prior theorizing indicates that
identifying oneself as a global citizen is related to intergroup empathy, valuing
diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and a felt
responsibility to act (Reysen, Pierce, Spencer, & Katzarska-Miller, 2010). Below we
review prior conceptualizations of each prosocial value that are found in discussions
regarding global citizenship.
Intergroup empathy is a felt connection and concern for people outside one’s
ingroup (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2012). Stokes (2008) posits that global citizens
are actively concerned about global issues and their impact on others. Schattle (2008)
notes that awareness of interconnectedness with others, regardless of subgroup
memberships, leads to greater empathetic concern. Golmohamad (2008) suggests that
empathy results from identifying as a global citizen, and further proposes that
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empathy will lead to altruistic acts to help others. Empathetic concern for others is
also related to valuing others regardless of their geographical, cultural, ethnic, or
religious backgrounds. Together, theorists have suggested that global citizens
experience empathetic concern for others inside and outside one’s ingroup.
Valuing diversity represents an interest and appreciation for the diverse
cultures of the world. While most educational programs endorse tolerance for
diversity, global citizens embrace diversity by actively seeking to learn and value
other perspectives. Theorists suggest that global citizens respect diverse perspectives
(Morais & Ogden, 2011) and beliefs and practices of others (Dower, 2002a, 2002b;
O’Byrne, 2003), value (Walkington, 1999), and understand and appreciate diversity
(Basirico & Bolin, 2009; Golmohamad, 2008). Baogang He (2005) proposes that the
basic premise of global citizenship is that all people (ingroup and outgroup) are equal,
and global citizens are primarily concerned with cultural equality. Global citizens’
proposed focus on embracing cultural diversity is also related to the suggestion that
global citizens endorse social justice.
Social justice includes attitudes concerning human rights and equitable
treatment of all humans. Theorists often link global citizenship with the notion of
respecting and protecting human rights (Dower, 2002a, 2002b; Heater, 2000;
O’Byrne, 2003; Pitty, Stokes, & Smith, 2008). Heron (2011) describes global citizens
as feeling compassion for marginalized people, both within one’s country and across
borders, and acting through social justice movements to help. Global citizens are
posited to display their concern for social justice by evaluating and identifying global
injustices and disparities (Morais & Ogden, 2011) and actively challenging injustices
(Gibson, Rimmington, & Landwehr-Brown, 2008). In effect, global citizens value
social justice and work to correct injustices occurring around the world.
Environmental beliefs are a set of values related to protecting the natural
environment and acting in environmentally sustainable manner. McIntyre-Mills
(2000) suggests that because all humans rely on the environment to survive, global
citizens show concern and act in ways that promote protection of the environment.
Global citizens are posited to feel a duty to the planet (O’Byrne, 2003), responsibility
to future generations to protect the environment from pollution (Heater, 2000),
express concern for environmental issues, and display a commitment for sustainable
development (Gibson et al., 2008). Tarrant (2010) proposes that awareness of global
ecological threats and felt obligation to act in environmentally responsible ways leads
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global citizens to work for environmental causes (e.g., support environmental
policies, purchase products from companies that produce goods in ways that do not
harm the environment). Together, global citizens care about environmental problems
and subsequently act locally (e.g., recycling, energy conservation) and globally (e.g.,
work with environmental groups that aim to protect the environment) to mitigate
them.
Intergroup helping is defined as behaviors that aid outgroup members, and are
reflected in behaviors such as donating to charity, volunteering locally, and working
with transnational organizations (e.g., Amnesty International, Doctors Without
Borders) to help others globally. Thus, global citizens often act in local organizations
that have a global focus (Dower, 2002a). Dower states that this outcome reflects an
adage of “intend globally, act locally” (p. 33). Thus, global citizens contribute to or
assist global organizations, advance prosocial global agendas (Morais & Ogden,
2011), and identify and work to reduce global problems (Arcaro, 2009). Together,
global citizens desire to help others is inextricably linked with a felt responsibility to
act.
Global citizenship is associated with the acceptance of a moral duty,
obligation, or responsibility to act for the betterment of the world (Dower, 2002a,
2002b, 2008). Theorists describe this felt obligation to act as an acceptance of the
shared responsibility to solve the common problems of the world (Osler & Vincent,
2002), obligations to help marginalized peoples (Dower, 2008), a commitment to
civic action to improve the world (Banks, 2001), participation in democratic political
processes (Ibrahim, 2005), and service in the community (Golmohamad, 2008).
Indeed, for many theorists a felt responsibility to act for humanity is the key
component of global citizenship (Caruana, 2010; Hovey & Weinberg, 2009; O’Byrne,
2003; Schattle, 2008). The acts of global citizens are often characterized as grassroots
movements opposing global institutions that further inequality, thus connecting global
citizenship values with a bottom-up perspective of globalization (Carter, 2005;
Caruana, 2010; Falk, 1993; Pitty et al., 2008). For example, consumers can act as
global citizens by boycotting brands and products that harm people or the
environment in other countries (Carter, 2005) and purchase products from socially
and environmentally responsible companies (McGregor, 2003).
To summarize, global citizens are posited to feel empathy for others; value
diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, and intergroup helping; and feel
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a responsibility to act for the betterment of the world. Although the literature
regarding global citizenship spans diverse disciplines and perspectives (e.g., political,
moral, developmental, educational), the above themes are consistently highlighted
when discussing the meaning of global citizenship. In line with prior theorizing
outlined above, we define global citizenship as awareness, caring, and embracing
cultural diversity while promoting social justice and sustainability, coupled with a
sense of responsibility to act (Pierce, Reysen, & Katzarska-Miller, 2010).
Conceptions of Antecedents to Global Citizenship
We posit that key determinants to becoming a global citizen include global
awareness and one’s environmental context. Global awareness has been described in
multiple ways, such as a recognition of our common humanity and the felt sense of
belongingness with the global community (Osler & Vincent, 2002), an understanding
that one’s local behaviors have global consequences (Morais & Ogden, 2011), a
holistic understanding of the world or world-mindedness (Richardson, 2008), thinking
in an expansive way (Golmohamad, 2008), taking a global perspective (Chickering &
Braskamp, 2009), awareness of interconnectedness with the world (Banks, 2001),
sense of membership in a global community (Golmohamad, 2009), knowledge of
globalization and the effect on everyday lives (Gibson et al., 2008), knowledge of the
world and the ability to view the self as part of a heterogeneous world (Nussbaum,
2009), and a perspective beyond national boundaries (Pike, 2000). Taken together, the
literature suggests that global citizenship requires an awareness of others, and the
cognizance of interconnectedness with others (Che, Spearman, & Manizade, 2009;
Davies & Pike, 2009; Dower, 2002a; Hovey & Weinberg, 2009; Oxfam, 1997).
Global awareness is posited to precede global citizenship (Walkington, 1999).
When asked, self-described global citizens indicate that global awareness was the first
step toward a greater global perspective and action toward helping others (Schattle,
2008). Hanvey (1976) argues that individuals move through increasing levels of
planetary awareness (e.g., consciousness of varying perspectives, cross-cultural
awareness, knowledge of global dynamics) to become global citizens. Dower (2002a,
2002b, 2008) suggests that everyone is a global citizen, however due to lack of
awareness of the identity, people are unable to recognize and accept one’s global
membership. Each perspective suggests that an awareness of one’s interconnectedness
with others precedes viewing the self as a global citizen.
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The environments in which individuals are embedded engender global
awareness and subsequent identification with global citizens. Consistent with the
notion of intentional worlds (Shweder, 1990) and mutual constitution (see Adams &
Markus, 2004), individuals live in cultural settings that afford particular identities,
behaviors, values, and beliefs. If the settings in which individuals engage on a daily
basis, or engage in while traveling (e.g., study abroad), contain patterns reflecting
global citizen values, then individuals may be more likely to identify with global
citizens. Schattle (2008) conducted interviews with self-identified global citizens and
found a variety of explanations regarding the origins of their global citizenship-related
values including study abroad, international travel, growing up in diverse
communities, and influential mentors in school. Indeed, Chickering and Braskamp
(2009) show that studying abroad increases self-reported global citizenship identity.
The interview and research evidence suggest that exposure to different world
perspectives and global citizen value-laden cultural patterns lead to greater awareness.
Thus, the second antecedent to global citizenship is therefore the normative patterns
connected with the cultural settings in which individuals are embedded.
Proponents for global citizenship education (e.g., Pike, 2008; Shallcross &
Robinson, 2006; Young & Commins, 2002) have noted the need for a larger cultural
change to engender global citizen identity in students. Shallcross and Robinson
(2006) highlight the role of the school to display patterns of global citizenship and to
afford students the opportunity to apply knowledge and values to real world issues in
order to prompt global citizen identity. Young and Commins (2002) suggest the
entirety of students’ daily environments (i.e., schools, parents, friends, and
community members) should model global citizen values and behaviors. Davies and
Reid (2005) encourage teachers to move beyond teaching knowledge and, instead,
immerse students in global citizen issues and applied approaches, such as school
government and community service (Davies, 2006). Pike (2008) posits that global
citizen patterns and values are not embedded in the majority of peoples’ everyday
lives, and calls on educators to weave those patterns into the educational system in
order to spread them to other social and institutional structures. In effect, global
citizenship education theorists recognize the influence of cultural patterns at school,
but also the need to expand participation in these values and actions to students’ wider
community (i.e., settings outside the classroom).
A Social Identity Perspective of Global Citizenship
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Critics of global citizenship (e.g., Bowden, 2003; Woolf, 2010) eschew the
concept as idealist and untenable because there is no concrete legal recognition of
global group membership (for a review of such arguments see Carter, 2005; Dower,
2002a). We argue that membership in the group “global citizen” is psychological in
nature. As suggested by Golmohamad (2008), global citizenship is a mindset or
attitude one takes. Individuals perceive themselves to be global citizens and feel a
psychological connection with global citizens as a group. Indeed, following a social
identity perspective, individuals can perceive themselves to be members of groups
that do not have legal rights or organizational structures (e.g., Reysen & Branscombe,
2010).
Social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and self-categorization (Turner, Hogg,
Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) theories, when combined, afford an integrated
dynamic theoretical framework (i.e., social identity perspective) to explain intra and
intergroup phenomena (Hogg & Smith, 2007; Reicher, Spears, & Haslam, 2010).
Individuals feel differing levels of identification (i.e., felt connection) with social
groups. Each group has a prototype or set of interrelated attributes (i.e., group
content), that are specific to that group (Hogg & Smith, 2007; Turner, 1991). When a
particular group membership is salient, the more strongly one identifies with the
group the more depersonalization and self-stereotyping occur in line with the group’s
content such as norms, beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors (Turner et al., 1987),
emotions (Reysen & Branscombe, 2008), and personality (Jenkins, Reysen, &
Katzarska-Miller, 2012). In effect, when an identity is salient, one’s degree of
identification with the group predicts adherence to the group’s normative content
(Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008; Hogg & Reid, 2006; Turner et al., 1987). For a
more detailed explanation of both theories see Postmes and Branscombe (2010).
Turner et al. (1987) posits that groups have differing levels of inclusiveness,
with human as the most inclusive social identity. Subsequent theorizing and research
shows that salience of inclusive social categories result in prosocial values and
behaviors toward outgroup members (Crisp & Hewstone, 2007; Dovidio, Gaertner, &
Saguy, 2007). For example, Buchan et al. (2011) asked participants to rate their
degree of identification with a “world community”, assign tokens to a world charity,
and rate their concern for global issues (e.g., global warming, income disparity). The
researchers found that identification with the world community predicted greater
giving to the world charity (beyond national and local identification), and global
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identification positively correlated with concern for global issues. Together, the
research has emphasized the notion that the content of a particular group identity is
important for understanding how highly identified group members will think and act
when a particular social identity is salient. Applied to global citizenship, when a
global citizen identity is salient, individuals who are highly identified will adhere to
the group’s norms (i.e., prosocial values and behaviors).
Evidence of Antecedents and Outcomes of Global Citizenship
Following a social identity perspective, Reysen and Katzarska-Miller (2012)
tested a structural model of antecedents and outcomes to identifying as a global
citizen. University students from a variety of majors completed measures regarding
their normative environment (friends and family value and prescribe being a global
citizen), global awareness (knowledge of and connection to the world), global
citizenship identification (psychological connection to the category global citizen),
intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability,
intergroup helping, and felt responsibility to act for the betterment of the world.
Supporting past theory (Andrzejewski & Alessio, 1999; Davies, 2006; Dower, 2002a,
2002b, 2008; Hanvey, 1976; Oxfam, 1997; Pike, 2008; Schattle, 2008; Walkington,
1999), students’ normative environment and global awareness (antecedents)
significantly predicted identification with global citizens, and global citizenship
identification predicted endorsement of the prosocial values (outcomes) representing
the content of the identity (e.g., intergroup empathy and helping). In other words, the
degree to which one’s normative context prescribes being a global citizen, and one’s
awareness of and connection to others in the world lead to greater identification with
global citizens. Identification with the category global citizen subsequently leads to
endorsement of a variety of prosocial values and behaviors (see Figure 1 for a the
structural model of antecedents and outcomes of global citizenship identification).
[Insert Figure 1 about here]
Empirical Evidence of Normative Environment as a Pathway to Global
Citizenship
Everyday environments (e.g., home, school, work, cities) are embedded with
cultural patterns (Adams & Markus, 2004). Through interactions with their everyday
settings individuals are constantly producing, reproducing, and modifying the patterns
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that shape one’s culture and simultaneously prime and condition others residing in
that cultural space. Everyday cultural settings not only prime and condition beliefs
and behaviors, but also afford individuals’ social identities (Reysen & Levine, in
press). If others (e.g., friends, family, school, media) in one’s cultural setting afford
individuals the opportunity to view oneself as a global citizen, prescribe and value the
identity, then individuals embedded in that environment will be more likely to
strongly identify with global citizens.
In a recent study, Blake, Pierce, Gibson, Reysen, and Katzarska-Miller (2011)
asked students to rate their perception of whether their university encourages a global
perspective (university normative environment) and measures of antecedents
(normative environment, global awareness), identification, and outcomes (prosocial
values) of global citizenship (see Figure 1 for the structural model of antecedents,
identification, and outcomes of global citizenship). Students’ perception that the
university environment encourages viewing oneself as a global citizen predicted
higher ratings of their normative environment (valued others prescribe being a global
citizen) and global awareness (knowledge of and felt interconnectedness with the
world). Supporting Reysen and Katzarska-Miller’s (2012) model, normative
environment and global awareness then predicted greater global citizenship
identification, and global citizenship identification predicted endorsement of prosocial
values (e.g., environmental sustainability, social justice). Importantly, students’
perception that their university encouraged viewing the self as a global citizen
indirectly influenced their endorsement of prosocial values through greater perceived
normative environment, global awareness, and global citizenship identification. In
other words, if students perceive their university’s culture as supportive of global
citizenship they will identify more strongly with global citizens. The results of Blake
et al.’s (2011) study support the notion that patterns reflecting global citizen values in
the university setting can lead to greater global citizenship identification and
endorsement of prosocial values and behaviors. Cultural patterns reflecting global
citizen values do not need to be explicit or consciously apparent to influence students’
identification.
Snider, Reysen, and Katzarska-Miller (in press) examined the effect of
different framings of the message of globalization on students’ ingroup identification
and endorsement of prosocial values. College students were randomly assigned to
read a speech by a university administrator that described the negative (job market
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becoming competitive) or positive (job market becoming culturally diverse) impact of
globalization on students’ future job prospects. In the control condition no speech was
presented. Students rated their degree of global citizenship and school identification,
positive emotions, academic motivation, valuing diversity, and desire to help others.
The results showed that compared to the positive framing, describing globalization in
negative terms lead to significantly lower global citizenship identification, positive
emotion, motivation to succeed in college, valuing diversity, and desire to help others.
Furthermore, students’ identification with global citizens mediated the relationship
between the manipulation of globalization message and students’ positive emotions,
academic motivation, valuing diversity, and desire to help others. The results
highlight the influence that school officials, as interactants in students’ school
normative environment, have on students’ connection to global citizens, desire to
succeed in college, and prosocial values and behaviors. Students’ normative
environment, especially school settings, can also directly influence students’ level of
global awareness.
Empirical Evidence of Global Awareness as a Pathway to Global Citizenship
Theorists suggest (Dower, 2002a, 2002b, 2008; Hanvey, 1976; Schattle, 2008;
Walkington, 1999) and research (Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2012) supports the
notion that global awareness is an antecedent to viewing the self as a global citizen.
Based on prior theory (Banks, 2001; Gibson et al., 2008; Morais & Ogden, 2011), we
define global awareness as one’s knowledge of the world and understanding of one’s
interconnectedness with others in the world. School settings are apt environments in
which educators can raise students’ global awareness to engender global citizenship.
For example, students’ perception that a college course raises their global awareness
predicts greater global citizenship identification and subsequent endorsement of
prosocial values and behaviors (Blake et al., 2011).
Reysen, Larey, and Katzarska-Miller (2012) recently examined the influence
of participation in college courses infused with global curriculum on the antecedents,
identification, and outcomes (i.e., prosocial values) of global citizenship. Students (N
= 768) enrolled in a variety classes (e.g., business, English, psychology, agriculture)
completed measures regarding global citizenship at the beginning and end of the
semester. The number of global citizen related words (e.g., culture, responsibility,
international, globalization, environment, justice, helping, rights, interconnected)
contained in each class’ syllabus was tabulated to construct an index representing the
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degree the class was infused with global curriculum. While controlling for students’
ratings at the beginning of the semester and item measurement error, the greater
number of global citizen related words in the class syllabus predicted higher global
awareness scores at the end of the semester. Furthermore, students’ post-semester
global awareness predicted greater global citizenship identification, and identification
with global citizens predicted greater endorsement of the prosocial values at the end
of the semester. In other words, controlling for students’ pre-semester attitudes,
classes with more global words in the syllabus predicted increased global awareness,
which led to greater global citizenship identification, which led to greater
endorsement of prosocial values. The results show the influence of participation in
classes infused with global curriculum on the change in students’ global awareness,
global citizenship identification, and related prosocial values.
Reysen, Katzarska-Miller, Gibson, and Hobson (2012) provide further
evidence of the relationship between global awareness and global citizenship
identification. In two studies, Reysen and colleagues examined the relationship
between global knowledge, and antecedents, identification, and outcomes of global
citizenship. In Study 1, participants completed a multiple-choice factual world
knowledge questionnaire? (e.g., “How many different languages are spoken in the
world?”) prior to completing the global citizen measures. Results showed that
students’ perception of their global awareness was more strongly related to global
citizenship identification than the amount of correct answers on a factual test of world
knowledge. Factual knowledge influenced global citizenship identification, but the
relationship was not direct; the effect of factual knowledge on global citizenship
identification was carried through students’ normative environment and perception of
global awareness. Thus, knowing facts about the world predicted students’ normative
environment and perception of their global awareness leading to higher identification
with global citizens. Having found perception of knowledge (global awareness) to be
the proximal predictor of global citizenship, the researchers manipulated perceived
global awareness in Study 2.
In the second study, Reysen and colleagues (2012) invited participants to a
laboratory and gave participants a cover story describing the study as focused on
validation of a new measure of global awareness. After completing the same factual
world knowledge questionnaire as Study 1, students waited while in an adjacent room
(within hearing distance of the participant) the experimenter printed a blank sheet of
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paper, creating the illusion of printing the participant’s results. In actuality, the
experimenter randomly selected a manila envelope containing one of three feedback
sheets: (1) low global awareness score, (2) high global awareness score, or (3) no
score with an explanation that the quiz is still undergoing validation (control
condition). The experimenter, blind to which condition participants were in, gave the
envelope to the student and instructed the student to review their score and complete
an additional survey (global citizen measures). Participants who received a high quiz
score rated their degree of normative environment, global awareness, and global
citizenship identification significantly higher than participants who received a low
quiz score. Importantly, the manipulation of global knowledge feedback predicted
normative environment and global awareness, which then predicted global citizenship
identification, which then predicted endorsement of the prosocial values. Together,
the results of the current research support the notion that perceived global awareness
leads to identifying with global citizens.
Engendering Global Citizenship in Educational Settings
Theorists and current research consistently link viewing the self as a global
citizen with prosocial values and behaviors. Given the array of beneficial outcomes
associated with global citizenship identification, universities are understandably
striving to internationalize higher education to engender such identity in students
(Sperandio et al., 2010). Yet, the concept of global citizenship education has been
mired in ambiguity. This lack of clarity results in unclear academic standards,
measurement, and avoidance by faculty who may desire incorporation of global
citizen education in their classes. For example, survey research shows that pre-service
instructors express a desire to include global citizenship related components in their
curriculum, but lack the knowledge and confidence regarding implementation (see
Reimer & McLean, 2009). Thus, compared to other nations, educational institutions
in the United States have been slow to incorporate global education into the
curriculum leading to students’ lack of global awareness (see Zhao, Lin, & Hoge,
2007).
To aid in reducing the ambiguity surrounding global citizenship education, the
empirical findings presented in this chapter point to clear and measurable antecedents
and outcomes to viewing the self as a global citizen. Based on past theory and
research we suggest instructors aim their efforts at influencing students’ normative
environment and global awareness. Following past research (Reysen & Katzarska183
Miller, 2012), influencing these antecedents will lead to greater global citizenship
identification and subsequently influence prosocial values and behaviors.
Additionally, interventions can be adapted to influence both antecedents
simultaneously to increase the probability of engendering students’ global citizenship.
For example, including non-western material in the curriculum (Reysen & Krueger, in
press) may increase students’ global awareness and simultaneously place the
instructor as a model of global citizen values in the students’ normative environment.
One method to engender global citizenship identification in students is to raise
their global awareness. As indicated in the prior sections of this chapter, global
awareness contains two components: (1) knowledge of the world and (2) awareness of
one’s interconnectedness to others in the world. As shown in prior research (Reysen,
Katzarska-Miller, Gibson, & Hobson, 2012), factual knowledge leads to greater
perceived global awareness, which leads to increased global citizenship identification
and prosocial values. A second method to increase global awareness is highlighting
the interconnectedness of people in the globalized world. Instructors have the ability
to revise their curriculum by including more information that recognizes the diversity
and focuses on understanding local and global inequalities (Arnot, 2009), highlight
resistance movements or other battles against oppression (O’Connor & Zeichner,
2011), and examine the same subject from multiple perspectives (Veugelers, 2011).
Breithorde and Swiniarski (1999) suggest focusing on students’ social experiences,
exploring the context and ramifications of the experience, and through discussion,
highlighting the notion that the experiences are social and global in nature.
Additionally, instructors can begin to question students’ perception of what are
considered “normal” attitudes and behavior in relation to the attitudes and behaviors
of others in the world (Merryfield, Lo, & Po, 2008; Nussbaum, 2002; Soudien, 2011).
With greater access to the online resources there exists the opportunity to highlight
the various perspectives on similar issues, or gain a greater understanding of current
global problems (Berson & Berson, 2003; Crawford & Kirby, 2008), and more
generally focus students’ attention on future global issues (Burns, 2008; Hicks, 2001).
Furthermore, institutions could require, or instructors could encourage, a greater
emphasis on foreign language learning (Byrnes, 2009; Clarke, 2004). Instructors can
focus on similarities between cultures and the larger sociocultural influences on
phenomenon (Adams, Biernat, Branscombe, Crandall, & Wrightsman, 2008), and
highlight the shared fate of the earth (Golmohamad, 2009), or the interconnectedness
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of trade, people, and cultural patterns worldwide. In general, revising curriculum to
highlight global connections, non-western sources of information, and relationships
with others outside one’s cultural setting can raise global awareness to engender
global citizenship (Fielden, 2007).
Second, influencing or changing students’ normative environment can lead to
greater global citizenship. Individuals automatically enact habits that are conditioned
and cued by aspects in one’s environment (Adams & Markus, 2004). Therefore,
changing students’ normative environment from one that cues ethnocentric values to
settings with diverse values reflecting openness and global citizenship could
automatically influence attitudes (see Adams et al., 2008). To accomplish this task,
instructors have the opportunity to present themselves as models of global citizenship,
influence the settings in which students engage to reflect global citizen values, and
encourage students to engage in nonmainstream settings. For example, to influence
students’ current settings instructors could work with community members to
highlight global perspectives inside and outside of school (Andrzejewski, 2005).
Instructors can also revise their curriculum to highlight the community’s
ethnic diversity through assemblies, art, and music events. Such an approach
highlights students’ current environment as globally infused. Indeed, students do not
have to leave their current residence to engage in nonmainstream and culturally
diverse settings. For example, instructors may change students’ normative
environment through international collaboration between schools to exchange
materials and information, similar to video pen-pals (Bovair & Griffith, 2003). Going
one step further, instructors could utilize online international collaboration and
communication to conduct action research (Gaudelli & Fernekes, 2004; Price, 2003),
simulate a model UN (Gaudelli & Fernekes, 2004), and more generally focus students
collaborative experience with students in other nations and cultures to solve simulated
global problems (Johnson, Boyer, & Brown, 2011). In the above examples students’
normative environment is influenced by instructors who infuse or highlight their daily
settings as globally connected; a second method of influencing students’ normative
environment is to actually change their environment. Schools and instructors can
encourage students to study abroad (Goodman, 2009). Indeed, studying abroad has
been shown to increase students’ global citizenship (Chickering & Braskamp, 2009)
and the experience can be further enhanced through the completion of service
learning while abroad (Greenberg, 2008). Thus, students’ normative environment can
185
lead to greater global citizenship by instructors either changing the current
environment or encouraging students to engage in nonmainstream environments.
However, instructors should consistently infuse settings or encourage engagement
with environments that contain patterns of global citizen values and behaviors and
highlight the interconnectedness of humans.
Conclusion
Globalization has lead to an emphasis on internationalizing education
institutions and promoting global education (Maringe, 2010). Although global
citizenship education programs have spread (Hicks, 2003), theorists have yet to
converge on a definition, conceptualization or academic standards (Sperandio et al.,
2010). To provide much needed clarity to the concept of global citizenship we have
reviewed past theoretical descriptions of the antecedents and outcomes to viewing the
self as a global citizen. We define global citizenship as awareness, caring, and
embracing cultural diversity while promoting social justice and sustainability, coupled
with a sense of responsibility to act (Pierce, Reysen, & Katzarska-Miller, 2010;
Snider et al., in press). Following an empirically established theoretical framework
(social identity perspective), we reviewed recent research showing the antecedents
(normative environment, global awareness) and outcomes (intergroup empathy,
valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and
felt responsibility to act for the betterment of the world) of global citizenship
identification. Lastly, based on past theory and research, we provided practical
applications to engender global citizenship in educational settings. Although
educating for global citizenship may appear daunting, there exist a multitude of
simple actions and interventions that instructors can make (e.g., infusing non-western
sources in curriculum, highlighting human interconnectedness) to provide pathways
for students to cultivate a global citizen identity.
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Intergroup
Empathy
Normative
Environme
Value
Diversity
Social
Justice
Global
Citizenship
Sustain
Environme
Intergroup
Helping
Global
Awareness
Responsible
To Act
Figure 1. Structural model of antecedents and outcomes of global citizenship.
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Chapter Ten
Action-Emotion Style, Test Anxiety And Resilience In Undergraduate Students
Jesús de la Fuente, University of Almería, Spain
María Cardelle-Elawar, Arizona State University, USA
Paul Sander, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK
David Putwain, Edge Hill University, UK
Abstract
Introduction. The Action-Emotion Style (AES) is the combination of
competitiveness and overwork characteristics, with emotions of impatience and
hostility, based in the construct Type-A Behavior Pattern. Test Anxiety is an
emotional reaction involved in adaptive or maladaptive processes when facing
adverse or dangerous events. Resilience has been defined as a person or group’s
capacity to continue moving forward toward the future, despite destabilizing events,
difficult life conditions and sometimes serious traumas. The objective of the present
research is to establish the relationship between characteristics of action-emotion style
with test anxiety and the resilience constructs.
Method. The sample was composed of 121 students of the Psychology Degree
Program at the University of Almería. The measures used were: (1) The Jenkins
Activity Survey for students-Form H (JASE-H), Spanish version, designed to measure
AES. (2) Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI-80), Spanish version. This questionnaire is a
reduced, validated adaptation of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). (3)
Resilience, the Connor-Davison Resilience Inventory, Spanish version was used.
Pearson correlation analyses, ANOVAs and MANOVAs were used to analyse data.
Results. Results showed: (1) Significant positive association between both
competitive-hardworking and impatience-hostility, and test anxiety; (2) significant
positive association between competitive-hardworking characteristics and resilience,
and a negative association between impatience-hostility and resilience. The level of
action-emotion style had a significant main effect.
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Conclusion. Evidence is offered to defend the value of the construct AES for
detecting possible learning difficulties stemming from students’ experience of
achievement motivation and of certain negative feelings while learning at university,
especially in stressful situations.
Keywords: action-emotion style, test anxiety, resilience, stress academic, high
education.
Introduction
University education is undergoing a profound change with the main exponent
of this change being the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The innovations
resulting from the creation of the EHEA have brought about new demands on both
teachers and students, many of which are the product of a restructuring of the
teaching-learning process (Biggs, 2001; Elliot & Dweck, 2007; Entwistle & Peterson,
2004). In this process, students take on a more active role in constructing their own
learning with teachers facilitating in the construction of their learning by advising,
orienting and helping them resolve difficulties that arise along the way (De la Fuente
& Justicia, 2007).
The university academic context as a presage variable of stress
The academic context is important because it can operate as a variable that
induces or reduces stress. The topic of stress, as seen from different fields of
knowledge, has been well studied during the 20th century, generating a series of
theoretical perspectives for both pure and applied research in this area (Barraza,
2005). Historically, there have been diverse conceptions of stress. The early studies
understood stress from a physiological or biochemical viewpoint, emphasizing the
importance of the organic response, and focusing on the internal processes of the
subject. The more psychological and social viewpoints that came later are more
interested in the situations that generate stress., For example the interactive theory of
stress by Lazarus and collaborators which places more emphasis on interrelationships
and mediational or transactional and appraisal processes (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984;
Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004).
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Action-Emotion Style as a motivational-affective, presage variable of academic stress
The construct Action-Emotion Style, (AES; De la Fuente, 2004, 2008, 2011) is
a variable that is based on the psychological construct called the Type-A Behavior
Pattern, (TABP; Bermúdez, Pérez-García & Sánchez-Elvira, 1990, 1991). However,
there are certain differences. The TABP emerged within the healthcare context, in
order to explain certain characteristics or a certain behavioral pattern in response to
stress, found in subjects with high coronary risk, and in an attempt to establish which
elements of this behavior are harmful or protective. The AES, however, has arisen
within an educational context to explain differences in students’ achievement
motivation. It assumes that the components involved are found in different
combinations within the population, and can explain academic performance, a product
variable in the Biggs Model (Biggs, 2001). In fact, a clear relationship has already
been demonstrated between characteristic behaviors of the competitive-hardworking
component, and academic performance in university students (De la Fuente &
Cardelle, 2009).
De la Fuente (1998, 2004, 2008) described Action-Emotion Style (AES) as a
person variable of achievement motivation, resulting from the combined interrelation
of the different components of the Type A behavior pattern, when interacting with the
academic learning process at university. Not all components of TABP or AES
(competitive, hardworking, impatience, hostility) that form part of the construct were
found to have the same effect on learning. This finding left open the possibility of
establishing different student profiles with different combinations of elements, based
on relatively stable behaviors and emotions – or achievement motivation styles –
which students manifest to a greater or lesser degree when performing learning
activities. Prior studies clearly established different student groups in terms of their
achievement motivation style (e.g. De la Fuente, 2011). The combination of the
motivational-affective characteristics of competitiveness and overwork, with
emotions of impatience and hostility, leads to a classification with five categories of
action-emotion style: 1). Type B (low in achievement motivation and negative
emotionality), 2). Impatient-hostile Type (low in achievement motivation and high in
negative emotionality), 3). Medium Type (medium in both aspects), 4). Competitive-
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hardworking Type (high in achievement motivation and low in negative
emotionality), and 5). Type A (high in both).
Test anxiety as a process variable of academic stress
In order to understand the nature of anxiety and its effects on performance, it
is helpful to conceptualize it in terms of its biological-adaptive function (Spielbergr et
al., 1980). Anxiety is an emotional reaction involved in adaptive processes when
facing adverse or dangerous events. More specifically, its action serves the function
of preventing harm, by generating preparatory responses. For this purpose, anxiety
uses a double mechanism of action. The first is the perception of a threat through
cognitive mechanisms, which is followed by emotional behavior, and has to do with
mobilizing resources to avoid the threat. These resources may be generic, and either
physiological (increased sympathetic activity of the autonomic nervous system),
motoric (increased muscular tension and faster movements) or cognitive (lower
thresholds of alertness and vigilance). Or, they may have an instrumental nature,
directly connected to the demands of the situation (studying longer, asking others for
help, etc.). It is precisely in this instrumental aspect where Action-Emotion Style has
a fundamental influence.
The Test Anxiety construct is a measurement of anxiety in test situations. The first
component, of this construct is the worrying, interfering reoccurring thoughts during
the activity which are a consequence of perceiving the situation to be threatening,
leading to a preoccupation with failure. Associated with this is an awareness of
autonomic arousal.
Resilience as a motivational-affective variable in the learning process
It is also necessary to establish the relationship between action-emotion style and
resilience, a personal variable that is currently attracting much interest (Bermejo,
2011; Forés & Grané, 2008). Traditionally, psychology has not given sufficient
attention to this phenomenon, but in recent years resilience has become an object of
study. From the etymological viewpoint, this term comes from the Latin saliere,
meaning to jump backward, rebound, be repelled, and bounce back. The prefix re
implies repeating or resuming. Resiliar means ‘to be revived or go forward, after
having suffered a blow or having experienced a traumatic situation’ (Cyrulnik,
Tomkiewicz, Guénard, Vanistendael, Manciaux et al., 2004, p.12). In recent years,
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the concept of resilience has come to be seen as the quality that a person has to
withstand and to recover from traumatic situations or losses. Resilience has been
defined as a person’s or group’s capacity to continue moving forward, despite
destabilizing events, difficult life conditions and sometimes serious traumas
(Manciaux, Vanistendael, Lecomte, & Cyrulnik et al., 2001).
In the educational context, resilience plays an important role. An individual
measures his or her own strength in the face of different academic and social
challenges and demands. Resilience involves confronting demanding situations and as
a result the individual understands better his or her potential and thus develops
confidence, grows stronger, learns and is able to respond effectively whilst preserving
his or her mental health. The few studies that have addressed this topic have focused
mainly on identifying resilient characteristics in a childhood population (Bradley et
al., 1994), in populations that are victims of poverty (Sammeroff & Seiffer, 1992) or
disasters, but the student population remains largely unexplored (Gargallo, Pérez,
Serra, Sánchez, & Ross, 2002).
The learning process involves considerable motivation, not only to adequately
withstand the pace and demand for adaptation, but also to be able to self-regulate so
as to respond adequately without becoming overwhelmed or falling into emotional
disturbances such as defenselessness, apathy, depression, or anxiety (Álvarez &
Cáceres, 2010). Some previous work on resilience in student populations associates
these mental health manifestations with a deficiency in resilience (Bragagnolo et al.,
2005). Likewise, research on stress in university students indicates that lack of selfconfidence creates a pattern of vulnerability, leaving students with low resistance and
lack of optimism about themselves, their environment and their possibilities for
getting ahead (De la Fuente, Zapata, Sander & Putwain, in review). This in turn
triggers psychological problems in the educational and social context. These disorders
are not always addressed by institutional support services, and end up affecting
academic performance, social relationships and the student’s own affectivity
(Solórzano & Ramos, 2006).
Objectives and hypothesis
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According to prior evidence, there are anxiety responses that are adaptive in
their initial level of activation, and not adaptive at a higher level. With this logic, our
first research objective was to establish relationships between AES, its dimensions
and components, and Test Anxiety. The second objective was to establish an
interdependent relationship between the two constructs. The first hypothesis states
that competitiveness-overwork should have a positive but weaker association with test
anxiety, while impatience-hostility would have a strong association. Similarly, that
competitiveness-overwork should have a positive association with resilience, while
impatience-hostility would have no association. The second hypothesis states that
AES will discriminate in terms of level of test anxiety and resilience, with higher
scores in anxiety and lower in resilience of the impatient-hostile type, and lower
scores of anxiety and high in resilience, in the competitive-hardworking type.
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 121 students in the 2nd and 4th years of the Psychology
Degree Program at the University of Almería (Spain), with a mean age of 21.06
(sd=3.10).
Instruments
Action-emotion style. The Jenkins Activity Survey for students-Form H (JASE-H)
was used. This scale, used for measuring the TABP, has been adapted (Bermúdez,
Sánchez-Elvira & Pérez-García, 1991) from the Jenkins Activity Survey in its T
version (Krantz, Glass, & Snyder, 1974), a version of TABP for students. It contains
4 factors: Impatience, Hostility, Competitiveness and Hardworking. In total, the
questionnaire contains 32 items, each with a six-point Likert-type response format, so
that the student participant must choose the extent to which an item applies to him or
her. A value of one means that it is not at all applicable, and six means that it is totally
applicable. The JASE-H offers both a global TABP score, obtained by adding the
scores on each of the items, and specific score for each of the components that
comprise the TABP. Regarding psychometric properties of this instrument, the
correlations between the different subscales are low but significant, and correlations
between each subscale and the total scale are also high (Bermúdez, Sánchez-Elvira &
201
Pérez-García, 1991). Furthermore, the JASE-H presents high internal consistency
(alpha coefficient of 0.85 for the total scale, and 0.81 for the Impatience-Hostility
factors, 0.82 for Competitiveness and 0.70 for Hardworking) and high stability over
time, both for the complete scale (0.68) and for each of the above factors (0.61, 0.76
and 0.70 respectively).
Test Anxiety. The TAI-80, Test Anxiety Inventory, was used. This questionnaire is a
reduced, validated Spanish adaptation of the STAI (State Trait Anxiety Inventory), by
Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene (Spielberger et al., 1970, 1980). This inventory
provides a measurement of anxiety in test situations, addressing the two components
explained above. The test contains two parts, with 10 questions each. Worry is
evaluated through the existence of interfering and automatic thoughts that prevent the
proper functioning of attention, working memory and performance on the assessment
situation. The emotionality is evaluated through negative emotions, which can also be
interfering. Reliability statistics are Alpha= .919, Guttman Split Half=.865 for worry,
and Alpha= .819, Guttman Split Half=.834 for emotionality (Spielberger et al, 1980).
Resilience. The Connor_Davidson Resilience Inventory (CD-RISC) was used
(Connor & Davidson, 2003). This Likert-type scale is made up of 25 items, which
address five factors: (1) personal competence, high standards and tenacity; (2)
tolerance of negative affect and strengthening effects of stress; (3) positive acceptance
of change, and secure relationships; (4) control, and (5) spiritual influences.
Reliability and Validity measures reported by the authors are consistent. In our
sample, the statistics are Alpha= .868, and Guttman Split Half=.714 (Connor &
Davidson, 2003). .
Procedure
All participants received the necessary information about the research and about
how to complete the different questionnaires. Completion of questionnaires was
voluntary and took place during class hours in the months of February and June,
2011-12, respectively, for the first and second scale. The researchers followed the
ethical standards as laid down by the American Psychological Assoication.
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Design and Data Analysis
A correlational and inferential design was used. Pearson bivariate correlations (twotailed) were carried out, as well as univariate analyses (ANOVAs) and multivariate
analyses (MANOVAs). In order to determine the type of AES, cluster analysis was
carried out, establishing three levels (low-medium-high) for each dimension. Thus,
the five groups were established as combinations of the low and high levels. For
example, Type 2 (impatient-hostile) is the combination of a high level of impatiencehostility and a low level of competitiveness-overwork. The remaining students that
did not fit into the classification were discarded which resulted in a total of 68
students that remained out of the initial sample of 121.
Results
There was a significant, positive correlation of both dimensions of Action-Emotion
Style and test anxiety. Specifically the dimensions associated with test anxiety are
overwork and impatience. See Table 1.
_____________________________________________________________________
C
HW IMP HOST
CHW IMHOST
JASET
WORRY
EMOTION
.381** .388*
.327** .272**
.249** .280**
.193*
.261**
ANXIETY
.365** .338**
.227* .229*
.219*
_____________________________________________________________________
* p<.01, ** p<.001.
C: Competitiveness; HW: Hardworking; IMP: Impatience, HOST: Hostility; CHW: CompetitivenessHardworking; IMHOST: Impatience-Hostility; JASET: JASE Total. Worry: Worry, EMOTIO:
Emotionality, ANXIETY: Test Anxiety
Table 1. Correlations between the components and dimensions of Action-Emotion
Style
and Test Anxiety
The ANOVA performed between Action-Emotion Style (AES) and total anxiety
showed a significant main effect of AES, F(4,65)=3.923 (Index Pillai), p<.006. The
MANOVA by components was also significant, F(8,130)=2.124 (Index Pillai), p<.03,
eta2=.117, with a significant partial effect of AES on Worry F(4,65)=4.369 (Index
203
Pillai), p<.003 and on emotionality, F(4, 65)=3,010, p<.02. Direct values are shown
in Table 2.
_____________________________________________________________________
1. Type B 2.Type IH
3.Type M 4.Type CHW 5.Type A
n=10
n=18
n=15
n=10
n=16
WORRY
1.20 (.33)
1.91 (.57)
1.96 (.64)
1.48 (.40)
2.31 (.66)
EMOTION 1.90 (.45)
2.32 (.63)
2.37 (.74)
1.89 (.51)
2.61 (.74)
_____________________________________________________________________
ANXIETY
1.76 (.76)
2.11 (.67)
2.17 (.67)
1.68 (.39)
2.46 (.67)
_____________________________________________________________________
Type B: low in achievement motivation and negative emotionality; Type IH: impatient-hostile; Type
M: Medium; Type CHW: Type competitive-hardworking; Type A: high in impatience-hostility and
competitiveness-overwork. WORRY: worry EMOTION: Emotionality, ANXIETY: Test Anxiety
Table 2. ANOVA and MANOVA between AES and test anxiety
Further analyses of paired differences of means showed that for all types,
emotionality was significantly greater than worry. The greatest difference was
produced in students with Type IH (t=-5.85, p<.001), and the least in the competitivehardworking types (t=-2.72, p<.02).
We found a significant, positive correlation between some of the dimensions of
action-emotion style and resilience. Specifically, the Competitiveness-Overwork
dimension has the closest correlation to resilience. Certain dimensions of resilience –
tenacity, withstanding stress and the perception of exercising control – are associated
with action-emotion style, especially with competitiveness and with overwork. See
Table 3.
_____________________________________________________________________
________
C
HW IMP
HOST
CHW IMHOST
JASET
1. TENACI
2. STRESS
.269** .276**
.324**
.325**
.322*
.273**
.380**
3. CHANGE
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4. CONTR
5. SPIRIT
.241**
.211*
.248**
.196*
TOTAL
.296** .290**
.358**
.353**
_____________________________________________________________________
* p<.01, ** p<.001.
C: Competitiveness; HW: Hardworking; IMP: Impatience, HOST: Hostility; CHW: CompetitivenessHardworking; IMHOST: Impatience-Hostility; JASET: JASE Total
TENACI: tenacity; STRESS: withstanding stress: CHANGE: acceptance of change; CONTR:
perception of exercising control; SPIRIT: spirituality.
Table 3. Correlations between the components and dimensions of action-emotion
style and dimensions of resilience.
The ANOVA between Action-Emotion Style (AES) and total resilience showed a
significant main effect of AES, F (4,67)=6.118 (Pillai), p<.001, presenting 4 > 2.1
(p.01) and 5 > 2 (p<.05). The MANOVA by components was also significant, F(20,
264)=1.734 (Pillai), p<.02, eta2=.116, with a significant partial effect of AES on
tenacity, F(4,67)=4.386 (Pillai ), p<.003, (4 > 2,1, p<.05) for withstanding stress,
F(4, 67)=6.207, p<.001, (5,4,3, > 2, p<.01) and adapting to change, F(4, 67)=2.526,
p<.05.Direct values are shown in Table 4.
_____________________________________________________________________
1. Type B
2.Type IH 3.Type M 4.Type CHW
5.Type A
n=10
n=18
n=15
n=10
n=16
3.36 (.63)
3.29 (.48)
3.50 (.73)
3.14 (.30)
3.73 (.50)
3.69 (.53)
4.20 (.44)
3.80 (.55)
4.00 (.51)
3.79 (.51)
3. CHANGE 3.92 (.58)
4. CONTR
3.72 (.74)
5. SPIRIT
2.04 (.96)
3.71 (.54)
3.55 (1.1)
2.38 (.83)
3.97 (.36)
3.87 (.71)
2.93 (1.1)
4.21 (.50)
4.27 (.61)
2.77 (.90)
4.12 (.37)
4.00 (.62)
2.71 (1.0)
1. TENACI
2. STRESS
TOTAL
3.27 (.43)
3.25 (.46)*
3.64 (.35)
3.85 (.47)*
3.72 (.30)
_____________________________________________________________________
Type B: low in IH and CHW; Type IH: impatient-hostile; Type M: Medium; Type CHW: Type
competitive-hardworking; Type A: high in impatience-hostility and competitiveness-overwork
TENACI: tenacity; STRESS: withstanding stress: CHANGE: acceptance of change; CONTR:
perception of exercising control; SPIRIT: spirituality.
Table 4. ANOVA and MANOVA between AES and resilience
Discussion and Conclusions
205
The first research objective was to establish relationships between Action-Emotion
Style, its dimensions and components, and Test Anxiety. It stated that
competitiveness-overwork should have a positive but weaker association with test
anxiety, while impatience-hostility would have a strong association. Test anxiety is
confirmed to be present in both components of Action-Emotion Style. It is necessary
to emphasise that within the competitiveness-overwork component, the latter aspect is
associated with test anxiety. Likewise, in impatience-hostility, test anxiety is mainly
associated with impatience, not with hostility. This evidence helps to show that
impatience and hostility are two distinct negative emotions. Anxiety (worry and
emotionality) appears as an emotional response of activation; for this reason it is
associated with overwork and impatience. It has been confirmed that different
components of AES have significant associations with resilience. It should be
emphasised that the competitiveness-overwork component is most associated with
resilience, in particular with tenacity, withstanding stress and adapting to change. In
contrast, the impatience-hostility component is not associated with these factors,
which may be considered stress minimizers. Once more, this evidence helps to
corroborate the possibility that impatience and hostility are negative motivationalaffective elements that do not make use of resilience to protect from stress (Kardum1
& Hudek-Knezevic, 2012).
As for the second objective and hypothesis, referring to the effect of action-emotion
style, an interdependent relationship between the two constructs is confirmed.
Specifically, as was hypothesized, impatient-hostile students have greater anxiety in
general, and more emotionality in particular. Another interesting aspect is that
competitive-hardworking students present the least anxiety. This result can be
explained, through the mechanism of inhibited attention to one’s own responses of
activation or fatigue, accompanied by attention strategies that focus on the task.
Similarly, an interdependent relationship between the two constructs is confirmed.
Specifically, as was hypothesized, the competitive-hardworking students have higher
levels of resilience or tenacity, withstanding stress and adaptation to change which is
unlike the impatient-hostile types, who score lower than the mean in contrast to the
competitive-hardworking types and the Type A students. This result is consistent
with the idea of resilience as a variable with a buffering effect against stress.
206
The implications of this result are important for understanding learning
difficulties with a motivational-affective source, associated with action-emotion style
(AES). Based on AES types, we can consider that students with an impatient-hostile
achievement motivation style, in addition to having a more surface approach to
learning, have poorer regulation, persistence, decision-making, along with high levels
of test anxiety. For this reason, students with an impatient-hostile style should be
trained in personal self-regulation processes, in general, and in self-regulated learning
strategies, in particular.
Despite sample limitations, this investigation has shown that the behavioral
dimensions of the construct Action-Emotion Style have value and power to establish
associations with other motivational-affective variables, now considered classic, in
university learning. Yet to be established are relationships between this construct and
coping styles, as a strategic variable in managing stress (Putwain, Symes, Connors, &
Douglas-Osborn (2012) as well as how this construct affects perception of teachinglearning processes at university (Putwain & Symes, 2011) and finally, how it
mediates in meta-cognitive strategies and in academic performance.
Acknowledgments
This research was carried out within the framework of the R&D Project ref.
EDU2011-24805 (2012-2014). MICINN and FEDER Funds.
207
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Chapter 11
Critical thinking: Focal point for a culture of inquiry
David C. Johnsen
University of Iowa, United States
ABSTRACT
With the explosion of information, learning more facts and techniques alone will not
allow adaptation to new information, cultures and concepts. Learning how to think
critically, analytically and creatively will be the path to adaptation. This calls for
educational institutions to shift, to go beyond mastering facts and techniques to a
focus on outcomes across disciplines and curriculum years. This chapter will focus on
enhancing a culture of inquiry, including some key concepts in critical thinking,
stating and assessing outcomes, transcending disciplines, and settings for teaching and
learning. While the ideas presented here have application to other health sciences and
beyond, the examples are from a dental faculty in a university.
Key Words: inquiry, critical thinking, knowledge, health sciences
Thematic Quote
The opening lines (in a classroom) from Charles Dickens’ “Hard Times”: “Now
what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are
wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the
minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to
them…. Stick to Facts, sir!” Thus, the greatest sociological writer of the 19th century
telling of the human difficulties accompanying the industrial revolution starts his tale
not in a factory, but in a classroom. A recurring theme is the devastating effect from
stifling young imaginations.
Introduction: Purpose and Biases of this Chapter
Critical thinking can be an exhilarating activity. It can be the hub for just about
everything we do in education and in our daily lives, including the way we take in and
organize our knowledge, the way we picture the outcome of a technical procedure and
the way we analyze an ethical dilemma. Thinking and judgment pervade every
211
decision, whether consciously or subconsciously (Johnsen, 2012). The role of the
academic or professional leader is to create a culture of inquiry to adapt to both acute
situations and long term trends. This chapter attempts to focus on critical thinking to
include a peek at the nature of critical thinking, some key concepts from the education
literature, the state of development in dental education, potential application to other
health sciences, the necessity to move forward, and to overcome challenges
particularly with methodology and culture.
Critical thinking is different from knowledge because thinking starts with doubt
and reflection (Baron, 2008). Students all learn differently, so a single system of
teaching will probably not fit well to guide student learning. Some equalizing between
faculty and students is likely. A focus on critical thinking creates an interactive
formative environment.
To design programs in critical thinking, active discussion is as important as any
paper or formula. Critical thinking has been looked at as the “art” of analyzing one’s
thought processes with the intent of improvement (Paul & Elder, 2006). Art is
liberating for the minds of faculty and students, however elusive to measure. At its
core, critical thinking demands the learner to ask questions in order to reflect, doubt,
inquire, challenge, investigate, and create. Critical thinking is the vortex of learning in
higher education. It goes beyond silos. When we consider the whole of cognitive,
moral, and emotional development can be summarized by the breadth of perspectives
a person can take (David Lohman, personal communication), to gain these
perspectives means crossing disciplines and curriculum years. Research has become
interdisciplinary and education can follow.
It is beyond the scope of this piece to assess overall abilities on inquisitiveness,
including open mindedness, flexibility, overall judgment, and asking relevant
questions. However, it does seem worth contemplating whether these important
abilities can be assessed in the absence of structured models or frameworks.
A Culture of Inquiry and Respect – Inseparable Elements
With the explosion of information, learning how to think critically, analytically
and creatively will be a path for adaptation to a world we cannot completely foresee.
212
Learning more facts and techniques are necessary and not sufficient to adapt to new
information, cultures and concepts. This calls for educational institutions to shift, to
go beyond mastering facts and techniques to a focus on outcomes across disciplines
and curriculum years (Albino et al., 2008; O’Donnell, Oakley, Haney, & O’Neill,
2011).
An overarching assumption of this chapter is that critical thinking will drive a
culture of respect because it exudes questioning and exchange. Since thinking starts
with doubt (Baron, 2008), an inherent component of critical thinking is a systematic
assessment of biases. Ideally, examining one’s own biases can lead to a culture of
inclusion and diversity, which is based on respect. The root for the words evaluation
and validity is “value” which implies a subjective, even moral component. Moral
values can also be part of the culture because reasoning and decision making depend
on moral values. Intimidation implies fear to express doubt. While it may be possible
to enhance critical thinking in a culture of intimidation, it is difficult to imagine
maximizing the student’s ability to think critically without a genuine openness to
question and respect among all the participants.
One situation which is an exception is the execution of an irreversible procedure
performed by more than one individual. While input may occur during the procedure,
the moment may arrive when the team leader needs authority to direct completion of
the procedure. In such situations the team leader will “make the call” and it will be
expected for colleagues to obey.
Crossing Disciplines and Curriculum Years – Limits of Silos and Progression
from Novice to expert
Critical thinking is at the hub of learning and yet is an elusive target when it comes to
guiding learning and precisely assessing performance. Cultural challenges for
dentistry and other health sciences include the notions that thinking starts with doubt
in a culture of inquiry, based on respect crossing disciplines and curriculum years.
The purposes of this section are to firstly offer a set of guiding concepts on critical
thinking and then to discuss a set of implementation concepts with some examples.
This approach has potential to be applied to essentially any exercise reflecting critical
thinking.
213
Two guiding concepts are first (stated previously) the whole of cognitive, moral
and emotional development can be summarized by the breadth of perspectives the
person can take and second to be able to assess performance in complex thought
processes the first task is to know what it is the teacher wants the student to do. For
the former, an interpretation is to engage the student in multiple exercises reflecting
critical thinking. The more kinds of experiences, the more likely the student will adapt
to new situations. For the latter, the task is to emulate the intended thought process for
each situation (for example, how does a student develop a treatment plan?). The same
is true in other disciplines. If the intent is to write fiction then have the student write
fiction, to do math problems then have them do math problems, to play the oboe then
have them play the oboe, to treatment plan a dental patient then have them develop a
treatment plan. For dentistry and other health sciences, the challenge is to succinctly
determine the central components of the thought process the expert uses in a certain
situation – one of the most difficult tasks in education. If we can identify the expert’s
thought processes, we can then articulate what we want the student to do and
meaningfully set the stage to guide learning and assess performance. The thought
process thus becomes the outcome.
Progression from Novice to Expert happens to some extent regardless of the
learning programs and the curriculum. The progression happens from Novice to
Advanced Beginner to Competent to Proficient to Expert (Benner, 2001). For the
Novice structure is needed, structure that becomes a hindrance to the Expert. Thus
designing learning programs becomes a matter of accommodation to the Novice to
Expert progression rather than trying to deny its existence or to affect its course.
Critical Thinking – Define it and Move On
It is important to collectively define critical thinking as a faculty and just as
important not to get hung up for too long on a definition. Understanding critical
thinking is complicated by the lack of consensus on an operational definition. There is
probably not one “right” definition. One is “The art of analyzing one’s thought
process with the intent to improve it.”(Paul & Elder, 2006, p.54) The “art” component
puts critical thinking on a different footing from knowledge and technical skills. The
dental education culture however generally emphasizes and values things that are
214
“scientific” and highly quantifiable. The American Dental Education Association
(ADEA) defines critical thinking as “the process of assimilating and analyzing
information; this encompasses an interest in finding new solutions, a curiosity with an
ability to admit to a lack of understanding, a willingness to examine beliefs and
assumptions and to search for evidence to support these beliefs and assumptions, and
the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion” (ADEA, 2011). The University of
Iowa College of Dentistry defines critical thinking as “a strategy for evaluating one’s
own thought processes. One of the objectives of critical thinking is to identify
strengths and weaknesses in one’s thought processes and to develop ways to address
the weaknesses. The goal of critical thinking is to achieve a higher level of thinking, a
level in which one recognizes one’s own biases, honestly perceives all sides of an
issue, identifies needed information, and pursues the best possible alternative for the
given situation. Critical thinking provides the basis for self-assessment.” (Paul &
Elder, 2006)
Several words and phrases in these definitions separate the approach to guiding
student learning and assessing performance for critical thinking from knowledge and
technical skill. Examples include “analyzing information,” “finding new [alternative]
solutions,” “curiosity,” “one recognizes [systematically] one’s own biases,”
“perceives all sides of an issue,” and “basis for self-assessment.” These definitions
reflect complex thought processes associated with diverse learning experiences
(Baron, 2008; Penfield & Lamm, 2000). At its core, critical thinking demands that the
learner ask questions in order to reflect, doubt, inquire, challenge, investigate, and
create. This skill is fundamentally different from knowledge and technical procedures,
and therefore requires instructional approaches that are fundamentally different
(Frederiksen & Collins, 1989; Johnsen et al., 2011; Lane & Stone, 2006).
Settings to Enhance Critical Thinking
The social context will play a role in the effective cultivation of critical thinking.
In addition to developing a culture of inquiry and respect, it is necessary to provide a
setting where critical thinking can be developed. Engaging students in both small
group and one-to-one situations offers a dynamic well suited to inquiry. Problembased learning (PBL) and case-based learning have been key instruments in raising
the culture of critical thinking in dental schools (and other health sciences) and in
215
changing the social context to group or team learning and problem solving (Marshall,
Finkelstein, & Cunningham-Ford, 2010; Von Bergmann, Dalrymple, Wong, &
Shuler, 2007;). Exercises in critical thinking will ideally include alternatives to the
same questions, analyze biases and require self- assessment. Small group and one-toone experiences among faculty and students are well suited to discourse on
alternatives, biases and self-assessment (Johnsen, Finkelstein, Marshall, & Chalkley,
2009). Academic familiarity (knowing the student in an academic/professional
setting) between faculty and students will also enhance the richness of the exchanges
between these groups.
Knowledge and Critical Thinking: A little the Same but Mostly Different
Patient-centered care involves an inseparable set of knowledge, abilities, and
professional traits. For practical reasons, education is segmented into disciplines or
domains like knowledge, technical skills, ethics, and critical thinking (Larkin,
McDermott, Simon, & Simon, 1980). The comparison between critical thinking and
knowledge may be useful because of the pervasive orientation toward teaching and
testing knowledge. With knowledge we are interested in what the student knows.
While critical thinking is a part of assembling knowledge, the educator focused on
knowledge alone will not likely get into how the student assembled the information
for reproduction. While it seems clear that a core of knowledge is necessary to
conduct critical thinking, it is not sufficient by itself.
One approach to capture the differences between the outcomes of knowledge and
critical thinking (and other outcomes in learning programs) is to develop a matrix of
outcomes versus the methodologies used to attain each outcome. An example of a
matrix showing outcomes versus methodologies is shown in Figure 1. While the
content is from our faculty, the horizontal and vertical axes can be used by any
learning organization. This is different from curriculum mapping which emphasizes
topical areas, commonly by discipline. Methodologies on the vertical axis include
definition, cultivation format, assessment (summative/formative and
objective/subjective), institutional coordination and competency determination
(Johnsen et al., 2011). Methodologies are generic while educational outcomes are
particular to an institution. For our school, the educational outcomes were
knowledge, technical, critical thinking, ethics, practice management and social
216
responsibility. The exercise can be instructive in articulating one’s outcomes and can
show the intricacies of the interfaces between and among respective outcomes.
Figure 1 goes here
The matrix approach allows separate analyses of each outcome as well as a
comparison of fundamental differences for respective outcomes. The matrix approach
helps to accentuate just how different critical thinking is from other outcomes. While
general and technical (procedural) knowledge are straightforward to delineate, they
are logistically imposing to implement. Large numbers of courses develop factual and
technical materials with extensive instruction and assessment. In contrast, critical
thinking is difficult to delineate and less ponderous to implement logistically. Critical
thinking program implementation can be the more challenging culturally.
Components to Guide Learning and Assess Performance – the Thought Process
is the Outcome
A key to critical thinking is knowing what is intended for the student to do. A key
to assessing critical thinking is constructing or reconstructing the thought process of
the expert. This is particularly challenging because the expert may have condensed
the thought process to the sub-conscious. Succinctly stating the intended thought
process is one of the greatest challenges in education. And yet if we cannot express
what we intend for the student to do, can we meaningfully guide learning and assess
performance? To guide student learning and assess performance in critical thinking in
specific exercises, the following concepts beyond the health sciences have been
investigated: 1) Emulating the intended activity for validity (Baron, 1991; Bauer,
1981; Clauser, 2000; Frederiksen & Collins, 1989; Lane & Stone, 2006; Messick,
1994); 2) Gaining agreement of faculty members across disciplines and curriculum
years on the learning construct, application, and performance assessment protocol for
reliability (Clauser, 2000; Haertel & Linn, 1996; Lane & Stone, 2006; Marzano,
Pickering, & McTigue, 1993); 3) Using the same instrument – the learning construct –
to guide learning and assess performance (Messick, 1994; Kane, Crooks & Cohen,
1994) and 4) Including alternatives, biases and self-assessment. One such learning
construct has been in treatment planning (Figure 2; Johnsen et al., 2009). Another is
217
guiding a child’s behavior for a dental procedure (Figure 3; Johnsen, Schubot, &
Nash, 1983). The learning construct also serves as the guide to performance
assessment. Each of the Figures captures the essence of the thought process of the
expert and each was derived from extensive interviews and discussion involving
experts. In each case the construct did not “pop out” from the experts because the
actions listed had entered the sub-conscious. While these examples apply more to
dentistry, the concept is to emulate the thought process of the expert, then gain
agreement of faculty on the content, application and assessment mechanism, a process
relevant to the development of any learning program.
Figure 2 goes here
Figure 3 goes here
A Model to Guide learning and Assess Performance
Figures 4.1 and 4.2 represent a condensation of concepts from the education literature
that can be used for implementation in dental education and other health sciences.
(Johnsen, Lipp, Finkelstein, & Cunningham-Ford, 2012)
Figure 4.1 goes here
Gaining knowledge: A short and long version for guiding learning and measuring
performance
The first row of the model in Figure 4.1 shows a process for
guiding learning and measuring performance to gain knowledge. In this process, it is
possible for one faculty member (or more) to select facts, deliver the facts (via
lectures, website, etc.), administer a multiple-choice test, and derive a score.
Achievement of acceptable scores in multiple disciplines can determine overall
competency for a knowledge core in dentistry and other health sciences. The process
is additive for respective disciplines with a separate process for each discipline.
For critical thinking: A short version
The second row of the model in Figure 4.1 shows a single faculty member (or
more) defining an outcome for some aspect of critical thinking. A learning construct
is then developed to guide learning and assess performance. The student performs the
steps in the construct (for example, treatment planning), and the faculty member
218
assesses a level of performance. Assessment can be completed with a single question
or an assessment rubric. Many rich experiences and individual exercises for students
do not cite a body of scholarship to substantiate the methodology. The students
undoubtedly benefit from these efforts in ways that seem self-evident.
Figure 4.2 goes here
For critical thinking – an extended version:
Themes from the education literature support the concept that valid, reliable
assessment for thinking and judgment increases with agreement on a definition and
sound teaching. The central theme is to put the student into multiple situations that
reflect critical thinking in dentistry and other health sciences, bringing increased
validity, reliability, and comparability to the learning process and the assessment. It
also requires repetition. This formative approach brings the benefit of consistency for
students.
For any of these situations (for example, treatment planning) a learning construct
is developed to include steps in that process. In addition to steps for that specific
situation or process, additional steps can apply, for example, seeking alternatives,
addressing biases, and self-assessment. The more direct, transparent, applicable, and
useable the construct is, the greater the validity. The same construct is used to guide
learning and as a guide for performance assessment. For increased reliability, experts
(for us, faculty) gain consensus on the content of the learning construct, the
application of each step of the patient/case/literature piece and the assessment
mechanism. Knowledge of the steps and systematic application of each step can be
assessed objectively. Assessment of the student’s grasp of respective principles as
applied to the respective case will be subjective. Reliability increases with
independent agreement of faculty on the student’s grasp of principles as applied to the
patient/case. A single question or assessment rubric can be used to assess the
student’s grasp of principles. Assessment will be exact enough to determine a general
level of performance (which could be called competency) but not exact enough to
rank students. Thus, validity, reliability, and comparability (as well as consistency
from the student perspective) are increased when a common approach is applied to
multiple situations involving critical thinking.
219
While still in development, the above process is being used for several experiences
in dentistry reflecting critical thinking, including patient assessment, treatment
planning, search and critique of the literature, caries (tooth decay) risk assessment,
self-assessment, ethics, evidence based dentistry, technology incorporation, and interprofessional education. One approach can be used for essentially all of the common
applications in dentistry, increasing the comparability and the breadth of perspectives
the person can take. Each example crosses disciplines and curriculum years. The more
different situations the student is placed into, the more likely the student will be able
to adapt to other situations calling for critical thinking.
In some of these exercises, there is both an educational component and a scientific
component. Work is in progress to develop learning programs that first assess the
science relative to the exercise and then to develop the thought process to be used by
the student (or clinician) in applying the science to the case or patient.
A side benefit of the approach is that it is highly compatible with a formative
philosophy. Schools are using some of these concepts with potential for increased
collaboration across disciplines and curriculum years (Cronbach, Linn, Brennan, &
Haertel, 1997; Frederiksen & Collins, 1989; Lane & Stone, 2006; Messick, 1994;
Shavelson, Ruiz-Primo, & Wiley, 1999; Stone & Hansen, 2000). The above approach
is in stark contrast to a discipline based approach to deliver and assess knowledge
resulting in a single score. To cross disciplines and curriculum years, the above
scenario is more likely to occur in a faculty through cultural evolution than by a
proscriptive directive.
Fulfillment and Limits on Assessment: Assessment and Ranking
Performance assessment for complex thought processes offers an opportunity to
focus on learning and then conduct an assessment with the goal of determining a
general level of performance. Unless we know what is expected, meaningful
assessment is limited. So learning and assessment can occur at the same time. The
culture and pressures to rank students may be a barrier to more widespread use of
assessing complex thought processes (critical thinking) and in assessing progress to a
designated performance level. Making assessments of critical thinking “count” may
220
depend on at least including performance assessments in conjunction with knowledge
scores. Performance assessments in critical thinking face the same paradox as does
the mission of pre-doctoral dental education with the grading system widely used –
every graduate is expected to attain entry-level competence and yet the grading
system is designed to rank students. Even though entry-level competency can be
reliably determined, the subjective component may cause unease, especially when
students are expecting to be ranked, another difference from knowledge (Linn &
Burton, 1994). The paradox between the pressure for a ranking and the limitations of
assessing critical thinking reliably at a determined level pose a challenge for dental
education.
Crossing curriculum years coincides with the developmental transformation of the
learner from novice towards competence. Guiding student learning and assessing
performance will likely be more structured for the novice. The same extensive and
effective structure for the novice may be a hindrance for the expert. If the novice-toexpert concepts are integrated into the program design, the programs can be enhanced
(Benner, 2001). Progression from novice to expert happens to some extent whether
part of a planned program or spontaneously. It therefore seems logical to anticipate
this progression and plan programs accordingly.
The opportunity to take a school-wide (faculty) approach in guiding student learning
and assessing performance would result in increased soundness in methodology and
clarity for students (Dunbar, Korentz, & Hoover, 1991). Assuming a school-wide
approach is used, a leadership structure has not been addressed here. Should it be
entirely faculty driven or a combination of mostly faculty driven with some
administrative facilitation to keep the process moving across disciplines and across
years of the curriculum?
Introduction to a Model for Critical Thinking Assessment
Since the process of critical thinking is complex, it seems logical that some
segmentation of critical thinking will occur as concepts for assessment evolve. The
purpose of this section is to present a model now being used to assess dental student
critical thinking abilities in patient assessment and treatment planning across the four
years of the curriculum and across clinical disciplines. Methodology in this example
221
can be used for other exercises in critical thinking in dentistry and other health
sciences. The model is used when the student assesses the patient (or case) and
develops a treatment plan as well as when the student presents to faculty or peers.
Presented are elements of the model, examples, adaptation from novice to expert, the
role of subjective measurement, variations supportive of the model and correlation of
individual and institutional assessment (Johnsen et al., 2009).
An initial principle is the use of both objective and subjective assessments in
arriving at a final determination of performance. Two of the steps involve objective
assessments and can be done by a single person. First is the determination that the
student knows the steps in the thought process. The assessment is objective. Second is
the systematic application of each step to the patient or case. The assessment is
objective. Third is the determination on the degree to which the student grasps the
principles of the exercise as applied to that case. The assessment is subjective and is
done by the student (self-assessment) and the faculty (Linn & Burton, 1994). Some
corroborating assessment by a second faculty increases the reliability. Not every
student needs corroborating assessments, but some calibration increases reliability.
This process will reliably establish a level of performance and can be called “progress
toward competency” or “achievement of competency.” This process will not be
precise enough to rank a large number of students and to this point, there is no study
to correlate performance on the objective assessments with the subjective assessment.
Meaningful assessment in establishing competency in critical thinking will result
from a progressive series of formative assessments rather than a single “high stakes”
summative test such as a specialty board exam.
Elements of a Model for Assessing Critical Thinking
This section will offer a level of detail in ideal assessment. Abbreviated
assessment formats may be more practical in day to day activities (Johnsen et al.,
2009). Faculty can choose to bundle assessments into a more holistic approach rather
than assess each step. The two elements of the model now in use are a repeating set or
“cell” of minimal actions measured in critical thinking as shown in Figure 5, and an
agreed upon set of minimally essential steps in the critical thinking process applied to
patient assessment and treatment planning as shown in Figure 2 (Bowen, 2006;
222
Stefanac, 2001). The critical thinking measurement “cell” reflects the smallest set of
inter-dependent actions from which some assessment of critical thinking can be made.
The “cell” is repeated, creating a framework for more general assessments of student
thinking abilities. The “cell” has only five components, making it practical for
widespread use.
Figure 5 goes here
Figure 5. Schematic showing the model for measurement of critical thinking
abilities. Two “cells” of interrelated activities and measures are shown. A “cell” can
be applied to each step in the process of patient assessment and treatment planning
shown in Figure 2.
The critical thinking measurement “cell” has two dimensions as shown in Figure 5.
One dimension is a demonstration of the critical thinking process by the student and
the second dimension is the faculty member’s objective and then subjective
measurement of the student’s performance. Student demonstration of the steps in the
critical thinking process is accomplished with the identification of a step (in the
critical thinking process) followed by application of each respective step to an
individual patient. Measurement of the student’s performance is accomplished with
the objective measurement of the student’s identifying the step in the process
followed by the subjective measurement of the student’s application of the step to an
individual patient. To walk through the two dimensions of the measurement “cell”:
The student is first expected to articulate the step in the process, for example, chief
complaint. The student either articulates the step (chief complaint) or the student does
not and the faculty member objectively measures the performance. The student then
applies the step to the particular patient and the faculty member subjectively measures
the student’s performance. For example, for chief complaint, the student is expected
to verbally describe the chief complaint as well as its significance to the faculty
member and seek evidence from the literature that applies to the patient’s conditions
where applicable. While the faculty member’s assessment of the student’s attainment
of this step in the critical thinking process is subjective, it is highly focused and
systematically repeated in every interaction with dental students across the four years
and across clinical disciplines. The rationale for this sequence is that for the student to
223
demonstrate judgment in applying their analysis to any step, the student must first
know that the step exists. The model is also suitable for self-assessment of student
performance.
The number of facets involved in assessing the student’s performance in applying
even one step of critical thinking to a patient is large. Some faculty members
consciously assess facets such as accuracy, clarity, precision, relevance, depth,
breadth, logic, significance and fairness in making this subjective measurement. Not
all faculty members systematically consider each of these facets in making the
subjective measure of the student’s application of a step to the patient. We accept that
the complexity of the subjective measure may preclude complete capture of all the
inputs by the student and faculty member.
To complete the measurement “cell,” the faculty member then combines the
objective and subjective measures into an evaluation of the student's performance of
the critical thinking step incorporating the consideration of the student's level of
development (year in school).
To continue the demonstration and assessment of the critical thinking process, the
entire critical thinking assessment “cell” is repeated for each step outlined in Figure 2.
The process is repeated until all steps of patient assessment and treatment planning
are completed. Both the critical thinking assessment “cell” and the list of minimally
essential steps in patient assessment and treatment planning can be used across all
four years of study and across clinical disciplines. Variations for respective
disciplines will be discussed subsequently. The systematic repetition of all the actions
in the assessment “cell” gives a framework of the planning process. Systematic
repetition of this chain of “cells” allows for institutional inference of critical thinking
abilities in patient care and can be used as a framework for assessing additional
characteristics about students. Bundling of sections of the process can result in an
overall (holistic) assessment of the entire process. A systematic approach to guide
learning and assess performance with agreement of faculty in each discipline on
content, rigor in application of each step and some calibration on assessment offers
validity and reliability for the institution to declare a level of performance – a level
that some professions would deem as competency.
224
The use of various scales can be considered. The paradox in seeking increased
precision is the inherent limitation on that level of precision. While a level of
performance can be reliably established, it will not be at a level precise enough to
rank students.
Two topics are beyond the scope of this chapter. One is the notion of consolidating
scores on multiple-choice knowledge-based exams and the performance assessments
for complex thought processes to give each important learning component its due
weight. One opportunity will be to develop mechanisms to consider and weigh
knowledge/technical and critical thinking in the same field, for example in a table. A
second is the use of multiple-choice or other objective exams to gain insight into
cognitive abilities. Both are important future discussions.
Good News: We are Already Doing Much of This
Most of the issues discussed here are self-evident. Students learn and faculty teach
to high levels. One analysis of articles in dental education showed many educators
following concepts in the education literature without citing that body of scholarship
(Allareddy, Havens, Howell, & Karimbux, 2011; Berg et al., 2010; Callis et al., 2010;
Cho, Chee, & Tan, 2010; Licari, Knight, & Guenzel, 2008; Lipp, 2008; Lipp, 2010;
Marshall, Finkelstein, & Qian, 2011; Mould, Bray, & Gadbury-Amyot, 2011;
Schwartz, Peterson, & Edelstein, 2009; Hendricson et al., 2011). Many to most of the
programs had essential elements in critical thinking, including emulating the intended
activity; gaining agreement of faculty on content, application and assessment; using
the same instrument to guide learning and assess performance, etc. (Johnsen et al.,
2012). Most commonly absent (or not described) were the systematic search for
alternatives, bias analysis and self-assessment, and the application inserted across
disciplines and curriculum years. All the programs reviewed could be transferable to
other disciplines, but only one was described. No one program fulfilled all of the core
concepts from the education literature. The potential seems great to call on the
extensive body of scholarship to design programs and substantiate the many programs
already going. In many cases the basic design is solid, however improvements can be
made. The biggest barrier to overcome may be cultural more than methodological.
225
Conclusion
It seems appropriate for a chapter on critical thinking to close with reflections. An
evolving idea is that critical thinking is a hub and arguably the hub of teaching and
learning for the adaptive person. For some it is a cultural shift to consider that
thinking starts with doubt. Knowledge is an essential base but not sufficient. One
differentiating feature of critical thinking programs is the systematic analysis of
alternatives, biases and self-assessment. Prerequisites for critical thinking are a
culture of inquiry and respect aided by a setting with interactions among faculty and
students.
Many concepts from the education literature seem self-evident, are being used
extensively already and can be used to guide the design as well as to substantiate
programs.
Two guiding concepts are: 1) Engage students in multiple experiences/exercises
reflecting critical thinking and 2) Emulate the intended activity – the thought process
becomes the outcome. To incorporate these concepts, it is important to consider that
progression from novice to expert happens regardless of program design. This
progression is one of the main reasons programs in critical thinking will cross
disciplines and curriculum years. Once concepts are implemented, there is pressure to
assess students in a way to allow ranking. Valid programs in critical thinking abilities
can be reliably assessed progressively to a precision giving a general level of
performance (professions use the term “competency”), but not precise enough to rank
students. To close, it is fulfilling and fun to engage students in exercises reflecting
critical thinking.
Acknowledgements
To numerous colleagues in many institutions and schools, particularly at the
University of Iowa, Case Western reserve University and West Virginia University.
To Lynn Whittaker, Michelle McQuistan and Chris White for manuscript assistance.
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EDUCATIONAL
METHODOLOGIES
Knowledge
Technical
Procedural
knowledge
Analytical learning or
Foundations for
Patient
Critical thinking
Manag
Definition
Core of facts &
concepts in
designated
disciplines
Core of Procedures
Know steps, staging
executing
The art of
analyzing thinking
with a view to
improving it
Integrati
Applic of
Knowled
tools & s
patient c
Cultivation Format
Lectures, Seminars,
Lab, Assignments
Simulations, Clinic
Direct instruction
Self assessment
Principles of
critical thinking lecture;
Literature review;
Evidence based
dentistry;
PBL - small groups
Small gro
Master s
Patient
assessme
planning
of each s
each pat
Measure
Summative,
Objective
CriterionReferenced
Science-based
D-1: Summative >
Formative;
D-2: Reverse
Calibrated
Examiners Selfevaluation
Small groups:
Formative/objectiv
e + subjective
Learning reports:
summative and
formative
objective/subjectiv
e
Objective
know ste
Subjectiv
applicati
steps to
patient
Summative/Formativ
e
Objective/Subjective
Institutional
coordination
Dept Autonomy, Institutional
Communication
Extensive over the four yea
among disciplines
Competency
Collection of Dept & Course Dir Reports
Progressive and coordina
Determination
Figure caption: Matrix with educational outcomes are listed on the horizontal axis with methodolog
Entries are abbreviated in the matrix with elaborations in the text. Abbreviations are practical to ke
then drawn back to a wide view and then refocused on another specific point without losing orienta
231
Figure 2. List of minimally essential steps in patient assessment and treatment
planning. The list is applied to cases and patients across the four years and across
disciplines.
232
Figure 3 represents actions taken by the expert pediatric dentist in gaining
cooperation in delivering dental care for a child patient for a dental procedure. The
learning construct is used to both guide learning and assess performance.21
Behavior Management
(Faculty and Self-Assessment)
Proactive tasks
 Begin at Appointed Time
 Address Child By Name
 Comment on Child’s Activity, Dress or Interest
 Tell Procedures to Perform
 Tell Expected Behavior
 Position Dentist & Child For Control
 Examine Treatment Area
 Begin Injection 2 minutes From Faculty Check
 Conceal Syringe
 Tell Momentary Discomfort
 Talk During Injection
 Tell of Expected Sensation
 Tell Most Unfavorable Part Over
 Profound Anesthesia
 Dam Placement When Anesthesia Profound
 Tell/Show/Do
Rubber Dam
Handpiece
Restorative Materials
Interactive tasks
 Tell Procedures Accomplished
 Make Positive Statement of Behavior
 Use Innocuous Words
 Center Attention on Child
 Direct Behavior by Command
 Provide Specific Feedback
 Physically Contact Child
 Tell Tangible Effects of Behavior
Acknowledge Child’s Experiences
233
Figure 4.1 Implementation Model to Guide Student Learning and Access
Performance
234
Figure 4.2 Implementation model for exercises in critical thinking crossing
disciplines and curriculum years.
235
Figure 5. Schematic showing the model for measurement of critical thinking
abilities
236