Matching Items (4)
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- Genre: Diaries--Authorship.
- Genre: Interactive multimedia--Psychological aspects.
- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
ABSTRACT
Learning world history has the potential to develop adolescents into thoughtful, active citizens. This is especially true when students are taught in ways that engage them with complex issues and help them make connections between what they learn and their personal goals and experiences. However, instructional time in social studies is limited because of the current emphasis on standardized achievement testing in other content areas. Furthermore, in the specific field of world history, the scope of material covered, coupled with debate over what should be taught, has made it difficult to present a curriculum that is meaningful and relevant to students. As a result, the study of world history may be seen as tangential or incoherent.
The purpose of this action research study was to introduce an innovation aimed at helping students think deeply and find personal relevance in the study of world history. Specifically, visual imagery and reflective journaling were used to help students to become proficient in historical thinking and to fully engage in the study of world history. The study was developed according to a mixed-methods design: the quantitative data collection tools were pre- and posttests and a student survey, and the qualitative data collection tools included discussion transcripts, reflective journals, student-created presentations, and observations.
Results showed that the use of images and reflective journaling enabled students to develop some critical thinking skills, such as making claims, supporting claims with evidence, and considering divergent perspectives. Furthermore, students' awareness of their connections to the world around them increased, as did student performance on tests about historical events and concepts. Unfortunately, students did not reach proficiency in factual knowledge on post-tests in the class, despite these increases. However, this study highlights the benefits of explicitly connecting students to historical thinking through the use of images and journaling that allow students to explore their own thoughts and deductions.
Learning world history has the potential to develop adolescents into thoughtful, active citizens. This is especially true when students are taught in ways that engage them with complex issues and help them make connections between what they learn and their personal goals and experiences. However, instructional time in social studies is limited because of the current emphasis on standardized achievement testing in other content areas. Furthermore, in the specific field of world history, the scope of material covered, coupled with debate over what should be taught, has made it difficult to present a curriculum that is meaningful and relevant to students. As a result, the study of world history may be seen as tangential or incoherent.
The purpose of this action research study was to introduce an innovation aimed at helping students think deeply and find personal relevance in the study of world history. Specifically, visual imagery and reflective journaling were used to help students to become proficient in historical thinking and to fully engage in the study of world history. The study was developed according to a mixed-methods design: the quantitative data collection tools were pre- and posttests and a student survey, and the qualitative data collection tools included discussion transcripts, reflective journals, student-created presentations, and observations.
Results showed that the use of images and reflective journaling enabled students to develop some critical thinking skills, such as making claims, supporting claims with evidence, and considering divergent perspectives. Furthermore, students' awareness of their connections to the world around them increased, as did student performance on tests about historical events and concepts. Unfortunately, students did not reach proficiency in factual knowledge on post-tests in the class, despite these increases. However, this study highlights the benefits of explicitly connecting students to historical thinking through the use of images and journaling that allow students to explore their own thoughts and deductions.
ContributorsShanahan, Carrie (Author) / Rotheram-Fuller, Erin (Thesis advisor) / Liou, Daniel (Committee member) / Schonaerts, Claire (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
The effects of an internet-based self-compassion writing intervention for adults with mental illness
Description
Multiple studies have found that writing with self-compassion about a difficult event helps promote mental health and improve affect in college students and non-clinical populations (Johnson & O'Brien, 2013; Leary et al, 2007; Shapira & Mongrain, 2010). This study investigated whether a self-compassion writing intervention would lead to increases in self-compassion and proactive coping and reductions in depression and physical symptoms in a sample of individuals with different types of mental illness. This study also looked more broadly at the feasibility of conducting an online randomized trial on individuals with mental illness, including psychotic disorders, on Amazon MTurk. Individuals with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and/or depression on Amazon MTurk were recruited and randomly assigned to either a (1) treatment condition in which participants wrote with self-compassion or a (2) neutral condition in which participants wrote about how they spent their time. Participants were asked to write for 20 minutes each day for three consecutive days. Outcome measures were administered at baseline, after the three-day intervention, and one month later. Computerized linguistic analysis (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015) was also used to analyze participants' writing to determine if the intervention had the intended effect. Both the treatment and control groups showed significant improvements in self-compassion, proactive coping, general mental health and physical health following the intervention and both groups showed significant improvements in self-compassion, proactive coping and general mental health between the post-test and 1-month follow-up. In addition, the self-compassion writing group's positive affect improved significantly more than the control group after the wave 1 writing intervention and the control group's negative affect improved significantly more than the self-compassion writing group after the wave 2 writing intervention. Overall, the results suggest both self-compassion writing and writing about how one spends one's time may be beneficial for individuals with mental illness with different needs. Moreover, it was found Amazon MTurk may not be a reliable platform for recruiting individuals with psychotic disorders, and that the prevalence of individuals with any mental illness on MTurk may be equal or greater than the prevalence of any mental illness in the general population.
ContributorsUrken, Debra (Author) / LeCroy, Craig W. (Thesis advisor) / Holschuh, Jane (Committee member) / Stalker, Katie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The current study investigated how multimedia pacing (learner-control versus system-paced) and presentation styles (visual-only versus audio/visual) impact learning physics concept material, mental effort, and self-efficacy. This 2X2 factorial study randomly assigned participants into one of four conditions that manipulated presentation style (visual-only versus audio/visual) and pacing of the content (system-paced versus learning-controlled). Participant's learning was measured by recording their retention of information and ability to transfer information. Measures of perceived difficulty (mental effort) and perceived ability (self-efficacy) were also obtained. No significant effects were observed in this study which doesn’t support the existence of either the modality or reverse modality effect at least in these noisier online learning environments. In addition, the hypothesis that their effects could be an artifact of experimental design could not be proven as the learner control condition did not yield any significant results.
ContributorsKrause, Tyler (Author) / Craig, Scotty D. (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Branaghan, Russell (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of three types of instructional presentation methods on learning, efficiency, cognitive load, and learner attitude. A total of 67 employees of a large southwestern university working in the field of research administration were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Each condition presented instructional materials using a different method, namely dynamic integrated, dynamic non-integrated, or non-dynamic non-integrated. Participants completed a short survey, pre-test, cognitive load questions, learner attitude questions, and a post-test during their experience. The results reveal that users of the dynamic integrated condition treatment showed significant improvement in both learning and efficiency. The dynamic non-integrated participants had a faster mean time to complete an assigned task, however, they also had significantly lower average test scores. There were no other significant findings in terms of cognitive load or learner attitude. Limitations, implications and future studies are discussed.
ContributorsBrown, Andrew (Author) / Nelson, Brian (Thesis advisor) / Savenye, Wilhelmina (Committee member) / Atkinson, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016