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When Student Confidence Clicks

Academic Self-Efficacy

and Learning in HE

Fabio R. AricòChris Thomson

HEA Social Sciences Conference21-22 May 2014

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

UEA-HEFCE Widening Participation Teaching Fellowship

HEA – Teaching Development Grant Scheme

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PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS

Project Resources: https://sites.google.com/site/fabioarico/hea_tdg

Project Workshop: Wednesday 3 Sep 2014 - University of East Anglia

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ETHICAL REMARK

You will be presented with data collected during teaching sessions.

Students involved have given informed consent for me to analyse their responses and present the results of this analysis.

I can assist with ethical queries as well, please ask me.

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OUTLINE

1. The role of Academic Self-Efficacy in Learning

2. Using SRS to increase Academic Self-Efficacy Other methods to increase Academic Self-Efficacy

3. A few preliminary results of our analysis on student responses

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1. The role of Academic Self-Efficacy in Learning

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MOTIVATION

Are my answers correct? I’m so confused…

Is this going to be in the exam? Are you sure?

But what if money supply contracts rather than increasing?

Yes, we checked them together already.

Yes, we spoke about it in class and practiced.

You know how to do the reverse, you showed me. Relax.

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MOTIVATION

Typical problems analysed in recent pedagogic literature:

• Students may encounter difficulties with the course material support sessions, office hours, targeted support interventions.

• Students may display low levels of engagement revision of the curriculum, innovations in teaching, teaching technologies, partnership lecturer-students.

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MOTIVATION

Additional problem:

• Students may experience low confidence levels anxiety over preparation; peer-pressure and competition; inability to self-assess and detect problems.

• The recent changes in HE practice exacerbate this problem the ‘student experience’ model targets support and satisfaction; students run the risk of being put ‘at the heart of the system’ as passive receivers, rather than confident owners, of their learning.

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REACTION

Re-visit the concept of Academic Self-Efficacy:

students’ confidence in their ability to accomplish specific academic tasks or attain specific academic goals (Bandura, 1997).

Teach students how to become confident and independent learners® help them to self-assess and diagnose problems;® enable them to seek appropriate forms of support;® increase the rate of retention of widening access students;® enhance employability skills all along the academic journey.

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REACTION in practice

Develop a teaching protocol embedding Academic Self-Efficacy as an independent learning outcome, parallel to the curriculum.

Stage 1: Investigation and assessment of student Self-Efficacy - experiment with Student Response Systems (clickers); - explore correlation between attainment and confidence.

Stage 2: Extension of dataset (add student record data) Extension to qualitative analysis (e.g. focus groups and interview)

Targeted intervention to increase Self-Efficacy levels.

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YOUR EXPERIENCE

• What is your opinion about the relevance of Academic Self-Efficacy in learning and teaching?

• Have you experienced issues in your teaching that can be related to lack of students’ confidence in their own abilities?

• Did you try to address this problem with the students? How? Can you share your experience?

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2. Using SRS to increase Academic Self-Efficacy

Other methods to increase Academic Self-Efficacy

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the module

Introductory Macroeconomics Level 1 – compulsory year-long module - 170 students

Lectures traditional frontal-teaching (10 per sem.)

Seminars small group, pre-assigned problem sets (4 per sem.)

Workshops large group, problem-solving sessions (4 per sem.)

Support Sessions non-compulsory drop-in sessions (4 per sem.)

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations

Lectures interaction via clicker technology

Seminars revision questions + understanding questions

Workshops closing questions:

was the lecture enjoyable?

was the material difficult?

Support Sessions online report of clicking session + feedback

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Lecture difficulty indicator - 66% (+8%). Please look out for additional resources coming online very shortly. Video tutorials about the IS-LM will be available shortly.

I would like you to reflect on the feedback asked on the IS-LM model and try to identify what are your OWN difficulties. If many of you are confident about understanding and mastering the material, we need to make this belief becoming a reality. For those of you who are not confident. Why is this the case? Come and discuss this with me.

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations

Seminars preliminary Seminar Quizzes (paper-based)

Seminars 3-4 revision/understanding questions

Workshops 2 confidence/self-assessment questions

Sessions open-answer comments

Support Sessions online report of Seminar Quiz- solutions and overall performance- individual performance available

- response to open-answer comments

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations

Extra-Curricular Activities to promote engagement and Self-Efficacy

Seminars Module Facebook Page + Blackboard pages

- ‘challenges’ to encourage further study- interaction and participation

Seminars Voluntary in-lecture presentations (5 minutes)- to exploit demonstration effects

Support Sessions Campus Vouchers (for engagement, not attainment)

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations

Workshops peer-instructed flipped classroom approach

Seminars standard algorithm:1. Quiz questions + Confidence questions (no

solution)2. Peer-instruction learning3. Quiz questions + solutions4. Problem-set questions4. Feedback questions: - what was the cause of mistakes/problems? - did you enjoy using clickers? - were clickers useful to your learning?

Support Sessions online report of clicking session + feedback

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TEACHING PROTOCOL – the methodology

Targets attainment, engagement, academic self-efficacy role of the SRS (clicker) technology

Learning analytics rich dataset = clicker and paper-based responsesSeminars matched demographics from student records

uncover correlation patterns

Qualitative data focus group and individual interviewsSessions feedback from students

Support Sessions provide the narrative to interpret the analytics

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3. A few preliminary results of our analysis

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DATASETS

Student Q1 Q2 Q3 …

1 0 1 1

2 1 0 0

3 1 1 …

…

performance per question confidence by question

performance per student

confidence by student

longitudinal study- across all lectures- across all seminars- across all workshops

Intermediate and final attainment outcomes- course test- final exam

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SEMINAR SESSIONS

What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?

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SEMINAR SESSIONS

What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?

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WORKSHOP SESSIONS

What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?

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WORKSHOP SESSIONS

What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?

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PRELIMINARY RESULTS

• In Seminar Quizzes: high-attainment students display higher confidence

low-attainment students not able to self-assess their performance.

• In Workshop sessions: high-attainment students display higher confidence low-attainment display lower confidence.

• How to interpret this asymmetry?

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PRELIMINARY RESULTS

• In Seminar Quizzes: 3 or 4 questions, paper-based quiz, 5-6 minutes, not anonymous

1 confidence assessment for overall performance.

• In Workshop sessions: 5-10 questions, clicker response, slower pace, quasi-anonymous 1 confidence assessment for each question asked.

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PRELIMINARY RESULTS

• Low-attainment students encounter more difficulties inself-assessing their performance in an environment where:

they self-assess their ‘overall’ performance on a composite task

they are exposed to questions for a shorter period of time they are exposed to fewer questions, not anonymously.

• Focus group interviews (differentiated by attainment groups) confirm that low-attainment students display lower self-assessment skills important finding for intervention!

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SUMMARY

• Teaching protocol with interventions to assess/enhance Academic Self-Efficacy and self-assessment skills.

• Mixed-methods approach to disentangle the relationship between engagement, attainment, and academic self-efficacy using student demographics.

• Preliminary results uncover interesting patterns of association between attainment and confidence levels. It depends on learning environment and method of assessment.

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PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS

Project Resources: https://sites.google.com/site/fabioarico/hea_tdg

Project Workshop: Wednesday 3 Sep 2014 - University of East Anglia