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Undergraduate Student Works

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/42

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Browsing Undergraduate Student Works by Subject "active learning"

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    A comparison of student achievement across pedagogical modalities
    (2023) Bown, Erica; Moscicki, Michele
    Recent research provides evidence that students’ active participation in course activities creates stronger connections and enables deeper levels of information processing and learning compared to passive teaching and learning methods (Nurbavliyev et al., 2022). The present study investigated the relationship between active and passive learning across different pedagogical modalities and its effect on academic performance. We hypothesized that students in the active learning group would perform better academically than students in the passive learning group. Participants were students enrolled in hybrid or in-person PSYC 105 courses at MacEwan University. Our sample size for our analyses related to academic performance included 24 participants, 14 from the active group and 10 from the passive group. Our sample size for our correlational analyses included 97 participants. Throughout the semester, participants in the active condition completed activities and participants in the passive condition heard a lecture. Academic performance was measured based on participants’ performance on eight standardized multiple-choice questions embedded into each class's midterm and final exams, and overall midterm and final exam grades. We also investigated if certain student characteristics moderate the effect of activities on retention. Participants filled out questionnaire items assessing personality, self-regulation, procrastination, and test anxiety. Our results showed that students in the active learning condition performed better than those in the passive learning condition. We also found a moderately positive relationship between procrastination and test anxiety, and neuroticism and test anxiety. These results illustrate the potential benefits of universities offering more opportunities for active learning on students’ academic performance.
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    A study of mindset: better understanding the structure of mindset and how growth mindset interventions are delivered
    (2022) Kyler, Nathan; Moscicki, Michele
    Mindsets (MS) (i.e., beliefs about the malleability of traits) exist in many diverse domains, such as intelligence, creativity, emotions, and anxiety. With such a diversity of mindset domains, it is reasonable to question whether a general underlying factor influences all mindsets similarly. For example, if one believes intelligence is malleable, does one also believe creativity, musical ability, and athletic ability are malleable? In study 1, we conducted factor analysis on nine self- report mindset measures to determine if a general mindset factor exists. The nine mindsets studied clustered into three underlying factors: 1) Skills (intelligence, creativity, musical and athletic ability); 2) Personality (personality and morality); and 3) Emotions (emotions and anxiety). Stress did not load onto any of the three factors. In addition, we investigated ways to improve the efficacy of growth mindset interventions. Though growth mindset interventions show positive outcomes, the effect sizes are generally small. Actively engaging in material by applying the information to one’s life, or teaching others, improves retention of that material over passively listening to the material being taught. In study 2, we sought to determine whether an active vs. passive growth mindset intervention is more effective for improving exam scores. We found no significant difference in exam score improvement between the control, active, or passive groups. It is possible that the active intervention was not engaging enough to alter one’s mindset beliefs in only one exposure. Targeting general mindset factors rather than individual mindset domains may improve intervention efficacy.