This research is supported by - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

This

research is supported by

the NSF TUES Type II Award: ‘Collaborative Research: Understanding and Supporting Student Intrinsic Motivation in STEM Courses’,

DUE #1445950, DUE #1322684

and REU DUE #1156832.We would like to give a special thanks to our undergraduate research team at Olin College of Engineering: Yun-Hsin (Cynthia) Chen, Pinar Demetci, Margaret Lidrbauch, Caz Nichols, Cesar Santana, Robert Siegel, Emilia Tanu, Allison Tau, Sarah Walters.

Students’ Motivations, emotions, and Faculty Care In undergraduate Chemistry Courses

MEN:

emotions and

amotivation MATRIX

WoMEN

: Emotions and amotivation MATRIX

POSITIVE EMOTIONS

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

AMOTIVATION

WoMEN

: Faculty Care AND Lack Thereof

MEN: Faculty Care AND Lack Thereof

PRESENCE OF FACULTY CARE

LACK OF PRESENCE OF FACULTY CARE

WOMEN: worm distribution

MEN:

worm distribution

Ask me about my

WORMS

!

Robbie Siegel

1

, Emilia Tanu2, Yevgeniya V. Zastavker1, Alex Dillon1, Jonathan Stolk3, Michael D. Gross41Olin College of Engineering, 2University of Maryland-College Park, 3Southern Methodist University, 4Wake Forest University

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Study

Site: Medium size private universityData Sources: Institutional learning context,Self-reported demographic information,Course materials (e.g., syllabus),Cluster analysis of weekly Situational Motivation Scale surveyBi-weekly 7-item qualitative questionnaire about students’ emotions, performance, motivation, and course relevance perceptions;Study Population:General Chemistry II course,7 Women and 5 Men;Analysis:Grounded Theory using constant comparative method,Inter-coder reliability: 86%,Validity check: research group discussions and re-evaluation of the codebook.

METHOLODOGY

Women and men choose different activities when describing their situational motivations;Women more frequently described faculty care in the context of academically related activities. Men described faculty care within the context of building a personal relationship with faculty outside of class interactions;Students exhibit gendered patterns of amotivation (self-described):12:1 mention of amotivation for women:men in qualitative data22%:0% Cluster 6 motivational profile for women:men (high amotivation and extrinsic motivation)The increase in amotivational responses from the women compared to men correlated to academically-driven activities and emotions, perception of class relevance, and other coursework.

Emergent THEMES

Faculty Care inside the classroom and in an academic relationship This week we had homework and a third exam. Our professor organized a review session, which I really appreciated. It was very encouraging and focused on important themes that would be on the exam. I felt that it was helpful in preparing me for the exam, and really boosted my confidence.  May (Junior), Week 9I was a bit frustrated with all of the snow days… there were several areas the professor did not cover and he explained that he would not have time to teach us that material in class or in office hours before the homework was due. I value learning on my own and I am capable of doing so, but it is frustrating when some major conceptual points are missing.  Claudette (Sophomore), Week 3

FEMALE PARTICIPANT QUOTES

Faculty Care outside the classroom and in a personal relationshipSeeing my professor outside of class walking across the university and being happy makes me want to do well in the class not just for myself, but for him as well. In this way his general positive attitude towards the learning of his students and his eagerness to help the students struggling motivates me to do well.  Hugh (Junior), Week 2This week reaffirmed that if I keep close contact with my professor I will feel even more motivated to do well.” – Scott (Sophomore), Week 9

MALE PARTICIPANT QUOTES

Academic Attitudes It was very difficult to motivate myself to get to this class. I found the lectures very frustrating, in large part because we were only doing sample problems, which were not covered in depth and we were not given enough time to work on… I thought two of the questions were very unfair. The Arrhenius equation was not in any of our homework sets and only covered for 5 minutes in our class, and yet we had two 4 point questions on it in a 56 point test.  Sage (Junior), Week 5 With snow days and class cancellations, time was ample and I was able to commit myself to getting a lot of work done without feeling a lot of time pressure. It was a little hard to stay motivated in some regard due to the fact that we hadn't been taught a lot of the material.  Claudette (Sophomore), Week 2

AMOTIVATION QUOTES

Other CourseworkI was focusing on anatomy this week since we just had a test in chem so I really didn't do anything for this class, especially with the snow day.  Cordelia (Junior), Week 2I do not feel that I was very motivated this week. It is the week before spring break, so I had many assignments to complete for all other classes I'm taking, in addition to studying for other tests and writing papers. As I did not have a test in this course, I tended to put it on the back burner most of the week. I also did not get much sleep, so there were times in lecture when I wasn't actively listening.  May (Junior), Week 3

Class Relevance and PerceptionI have been traveling and interviewing for grad school, so I'm not as focused on the classwork as I used to be. I am more focused on my future, which means more than this class.  Allison (Junior), Week 7 From this week, I will probably try to rely more on the textbook so that I can teach myself any necessary material for the homework if we haven't discussed it in lecture. I've also noticed overall that my motivation for this course over the semester has been much less than it is for other courses, so I will probably choose not to take an early class again.  May (Junior), Week 6

Situational Motivation in STEM coursesIntroductory undergraduate STEM courses are significant factors in STEM retention among undergraduates. The structure of these classes affects students’ overall motivational attitudes. Specifically, the daily activities in and out of the classroom have an influential impact on students’ motivations and attitudes over the course of a semester (e.g., Y.-H. Chen, M. Lidrbauch, R. Siegel, Y. V. Zastavker, J. D. Stolk, A. Dillon, and M. Gross, “How Do STEM Students Find Relevance in their Learning?” 2015 National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Chicago, IL, April 2015)This study focuses on the daily activities of students in a General Chemistry II class to understand the emergent underlying themes relevant to students’ situational motivational attitudes.

Background

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