Rebecca R. Steingut

The Effect of Drama-Based Pedagogy on PreK–16 Outcomes A Meta-Analysis of Research From 1985 to 2012

The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities report heartily supported arts integration. However, the President’s Committee called for a better understanding of the dimensions of quality and best practices. One promising arts integration method is drama-based pedagogy (DBP). A comprehensive search of the literature revealed 47 quasi-experimental DBP intervention studies conducted since 1985. The literature showed that designs were generally weak for making causal inferences and that outcomes other than achievement were infrequently studied. A meta-analysis of this research suggested that DBP has a positive, significant impact on achievement outcomes in educational settings. Effects were strongest when the intervention (a) was led by a classroom teacher or researcher rather than a teaching artist, (b) included more than five lessons, and (c) was integrated into English language arts or science curriculum compared to other domains. Positive effects across psychological and social outcomes were found. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Daily Autonomy Supporting or Thwarting and Students' Motivation and Engagement in the High School Science Classroom.

This diary study provided the first classroom-based empirical test of the relations between student perceptions of high school science teachers’ various autonomy supporting and thwarting practices and students’ motivation and engagement on a daily basis over the course of an instructional unit. Perceived autonomy supporting practices were hypothesized to predict autonomous motivation and engagement outcomes, while perceived autonomy thwarting practices were hypothesized to predict controlled motivation and disaffection outcomes. In line with this prediction, multilevel modeling results based on regular reports of 208 high school students in 41 science classes across 6 weeks suggested that 4 perceived daily supports (choice provision, consideration for student preferences and interests, rationales for importance, and question opportunities) and 1 daily thwart (use of uninteresting activities) predicted changes in daily autonomous motivation and engagement. In contrast, changes in students’ daily controlled motivation and disaffection were predicted primarily by 3 perceived daily thwarts (controlling messages, suppression of student perspectives, and use of uninteresting activities). Results also suggested that practices interacted such that the perception of thwarts generally bolstered desirable daily relationships between perceived supports and students’ motivation and the perception of supports generally mitigated undesirable daily relationships between thwarts and motivation. Supplemental exploratory results suggested that the effects of choice and suppression of student perspectives may be heterogeneous and depend on the outcome and/or the presence of other practices. Implications of the findings are discussed.

The effect of rationale provision on motivation and performance outcomes: A meta-analysis.

A meta-analysis of 23 experimental studies examined the effect of rationale provision on subjective task value, autonomous motivation, engagement, performance, perceived autonomy, perceived competence, perceived relatedness, and controlled motivation compared with a control condition. Results suggested that rationale provision enhanced subjective task value, engagement, performance, and perceived autonomy to a small to moderate extent (d = .16 to d = .40) under fixed- and random-effects models. Results also suggested that rationale provision diminished perceived competence under both fixed- and random-effects models (d = −.19), but did not impact autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, or perceived relatedness. Moderator analyses for subjective task value, autonomous value, motivation, engagement, and performance suggested that rationales were most effective (a) when they were prosocial or autonomous compared to controlling (for 3 outcomes), (b) for samples with a higher proportion of females (for 3 outcomes), and (c) for uninteresting tasks (for 3 outcomes). Implications for theory, future research, and practice are discussed.

Explaining variation in student efforts towards using math and science knowledge in engineering contexts

ABSTRACT Previous research suggests that in classes that take an integrated approach to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, students tend to engage in fulfilling goals of their engineering design challenges, but only inconsistently engage with the related math and science content. The present research examines these inconsistences by focusing on student engagement, or effort, towards math and science concepts while working on an engineering challenge, through the lens of expectancy-value theory. Specifically, we examine how students’ perceptions of the value of math and science and expectancy for success with the math and science relate to the efforts they put towards using math and science while working on engineering challenges. Our results suggest that subjective task value significantly predicts efforts towards both math and science, whereas neither expectancy, nor the interaction between expectancy and value predicted effort. We argue that integrated learning environments need to help students understand how the domains of math, science, and engineering support their work in fulfilling the engineering project design goals. In other words, we argue that we, as educators, must help students to recognise the value of each of the domains addressed within STEM integrated learning environments. This paper discusses strategies for accomplishing this goal.