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- Creators: Department of Psychology
- Creators: Glenberg, Arthur M.
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Results indicated that participants who received blended strategy training produced higher quality source-based essays than participants who received only reading comprehension, writing strategy training, or no training. Furthermore, participants who received only reading comprehension or writing strategy training did not produce higher quality source-based essays than participants in the no-training control group. Time on task was investigated as a potential explanation for the results. Neither total time on task nor practice time were predictive of group differences on source-based essay scores. Analyses further suggested that the impact of strategy training does not differ as a function of prior abilities; however, training does seem to impact the relation between prior abilities and source-based essay scores. Specifically, prior writing ability was unrelated to performance for those who received writing training (i.e., Writing Pal and blended conditions), and prior reading ability was unrelated to performance for those received the full dosage of iSTART training. Overall, the findings suggest that when taught in conjunction with one another, reading comprehension and writing strategy training transfers to source-based writing, providing a positive impact on score. Potential changes to the Writing Pal and iSTART to more closely align training with source-based writing are discussed as methods of further increasing the impact of training on source-based writing.
Due to the elimination of the established instructional methods from the impact of COVID-19, the implementation of mass synchronous learning created a new strain of educational experiences for students that took a toll on social interaction. In the Spring 2022 semester, a survey was conducted of students that were previously or currently enrolled in the principal undergraduate biological sciences course, BIO 340: General Genetics, to assess both the prevalence of social interaction in the lives of the students and the potential ways this information could be molded to improve student’s educational and motivational experience. The results of this survey indicated that there was a considerable lack of social interaction and motivation among students that have taken or are taking BIO 340. Through a process of collecting qualitative data of students by 1-on-1 interviews, the majority of students requested that professors communicate with each other to learn more about ways they can incorporate social interaction as external technological applications and tools have been developed. Students brought up many external tools that professors in other biological sciences courses have been utilizing to engage student-to-student interaction and found these resources to increase their level of understanding and motivation. The driving interest behind this creative project is to understand the importance of peer-to-peer learning that may help guide professors that are new to synchronous teaching so that they may increase their level of understanding and comfortability of accessing resources that students themselves have shown to increase their educational experiences. The mixed-method design served as a means to understand what types of social interaction enhance students’ education and motivation.