Marilla Svinicki

Evaluating Collaborative Learning and Community

The goal of this study was to validate measures and assess the effects of collaborative group-learning methods in real classrooms on 3 specific dependent variables: feelings of campus connectedness, academic classroom community, and effective group processing (2 factors). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to evaluate a 4-factor model. Using hierarchical linear modeling techniques, results indicated that campus connectedness and collaborative learning (compared with no collaborative learning) predicted positive academic classroom community. For classes using more formal cooperative group work, campus connectedness and group processingndash;evaluation predicted positive academic classroom community. Suggestions for further applications of the measures are discussed.

Student feelings of connection to the campus and openness to diversity and challenge at a large research university: Evidence of progress?

Previous research conducted by Pascarella and his colleagues (1996) has shown that undergraduate students tend to change toward greater openness and tolerance to diversity from their freshman to their sophomore year. Although the study by Pascarella includes many different types of universities in the United States, the average size of the entering freshman class in their research was reported to be approximately 4,000 students. While these findings are extremely valued in a general sense, Pascarella believed that they might not be found at very large universities. To our surprise, our findings indicated that large universities may have higher levels of openness to diversity and campus connectedness than what was originally explained by Pascarella.

Exploring teaching concerns and characteristics of graduate teaching assistants

The purpose of the study was to explore a conceptual structure of graduate teaching assistant (GTA) teaching concerns. Results indicated that GTAs experience five distinct, inter-related types of concerns: class control, external evaluation, task, impact and role/time/communication. These ‘teaching concerns’ were further analysed by examining their relationship with the value placed on them by the GTAs and the confidence in dealing with the teaching-related issues of concern. The results revealed that GTAs tend to have concerns about self, task or role/time/communication-related issues when the nature of the concerned issues is perceived as being valuable but challenging. On the other hand, GTAs are more likely to have concerns with impact-related issues when the nature of the issues is perceived as both being valuable and manageable. Several GTA characteristics, such as teaching experience, teacher efficacy, participation in professional development and values on teaching practices, were examined as predictors of GTA teaching concerns.

Goal orientation towards teaching (GOTT) scale

Goal orientation theory has been widely investigated and found to affect many motivation and behavior variables in relation to student learning and work performance. However, unlike the motivational construct of self-efficacy, researchers have yet to investigate whether this theory can be applied to the field of teaching and contribute to the explanation for trends in instructional behavior and motives. The purpose of the present study was to develop an instrument to begin the exploration of teachers’ goal orientation towards teaching. From a three-phase research design consisting of scale development, score validation, and convergent/discriminant validation, results provided support for the development of, and validity of scores on, a Goal Orientation towards Teaching (GOTT) Scale. Although further validation is needed, future researchers and practitioners can use the GOTT scale to investigate how teachers’ goal orientation towards teaching can impact student learning, teaching effectiveness, pedagogical learning, and even professional morale.

Situating Students’ Motivation in Cooperative Learning Contexts: Proposing Different Levels of Goal Orientations

The present studies aimed to reexamine college students’ achievement goal orientations by situating their motivation in a cooperative learning context. The authors proposed and validated a scale of 3 levels of trichotomous achievement goal orientations. In Study 1, confirmatory factor analyses supported that, in laboratory cooperative learning contexts, college students adopt trichotomous achievement goal orientations at each of the following 3 levels: (a) individual, (b) individual-within-a-group, and (c) group. Results also supported students’ abilities to identify those 3 levels within each trichotomous achievement goal orientation. The results of Study 2 supported the scales structural validity again, and its relations with other related motivational and emotional variables were examined. Results allow for better understanding of students’ motivation situated in cooperative learning contexts.

Learning Through Group Work in the College Classroom: Evaluating the Evidence from an Instructional Goal Perspective

Early conceptions of group work seemed easy to understand and intuitively appealing to faculty as well as relatively simple to implement. As use in the classroom and research on the process continued, ideas about learning from group work became more and more complex. In this chapter, we describe the research on instructional innovations related to group work, not from the perspective of their underlying theory, but organized by the goals that instructors are trying to reach. In particular, we structure this chapter around some fairly universal instructional goals for the postsecondary classroom: knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, knowledge creation, and disciplinary discourse acquisition.

Faculty Development for Workplace Instructors

If the ultimate goal of workplace learning is to be successful teaching students who have been placed in the workplace setting to learn, then strategies that will help the instructors learn how to support the students are the goal of faculty development (also called staff development or educational development in different countries and disciplines) and its practitioners. To use the more familiar workplace learning denotation, faculty developers are the trainers who train the trainers. The focus of that training, and this chapter, is the workplace instructor and the goal of that training is to make the workplace instructors more effective when helping students. This chapter will identify evidence-based practices that can help instructors be more effective, while maintaining the integrity of the workplace activities.