The Snowball Effect: Exploring the Influence of Changes in Academic Performance on Student Success in Co-enrolled Courses

We conducted a randomized control trial with nearly 1,000 students to test whether using a text-message-based tool that provides small commitments with social accountability helps students procrastinate less and maintain engagement with course material, yielding improved academic performance. All students received identical content via text message, but the treatment group engaged with an online platform encouraging commitments and featuring a social feed with rankings. The analysis reveals that microcommitments with social accountability improved academic performance relative to students who received simple nudges. The increase is equivalent to 3 percentage points on an exam, driven by online and hybrid classes.

Download Full-text

Executive Function, Metacognition, and Language: Promoting Student Success With Explicit Strategy Instruction

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/2021_persp-21-00034 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Lynn Meltzer ◽

Michael Aaron Greschler ◽

Kim Davis ◽

Caitlin Vanderberg

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Executive Function ◽

Student Success ◽

Dominant Role ◽

Strategy Instruction ◽

Language And Literacy ◽

Self Monitoring ◽

Important Relationship ◽

Assessment And Treatment ◽

The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this clinical focus article was to discuss the important relationship between executive function and language skills and to provide speech-language pathologists (SLPs) with strategies for promoting student success. Background and Method The impact of executive function processes on language and literacy begins in the preschool years and becomes increasingly important from third grade onward. These executive function processes play a more dominant role when tasks require students to integrate and synthesize multiple linguistic and other subskills in order to read and comprehend, write, complete projects, and study for quizzes and tests. In this clinical focus article, we provide a brief overview of research-based executive function strategies that are beneficial for all learners and are essential for students with language weaknesses as well as learning and attention difficulties. We focus on the key executive function processes that are the foundation of academic performance, namely, goal setting, organizing and prioritizing, thinking and problem-solving flexibly, accessing information in working memory, and self-monitoring. We discuss a theoretical framework for understanding and promoting metacognition and executive function as part of assessment and treatment plans for SLPs. Finally, we address the importance of executive function strategies for improving students' effort, academic performance, and resilience. Conclusion SLPs can promote student success by offering structured and systematic approaches to teaching executive function strategies.

Download Full-text

Growing a growth mindset: characterizing how and why undergraduate students’ mindsets change

International Journal of STEM Education ◽

10.1186/s40594-020-00227-2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Lisa B. Limeri ◽

Nathan T. Carter ◽

Jun Choe ◽

Hannah G. Harper ◽

Hannah R. Martin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Academic Success ◽

Student Success ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Growth Mindset ◽

Academic Experiences ◽

Five Factors ◽

Stem Students ◽

Upper Level ◽

Survey Responses

Abstract Background The extent to which students view their intelligence as improvable (i.e., their “mindset”) influences students’ thoughts, behaviors, and ultimately their academic success. Thus, understanding the development of students’ mindsets is of great interest to education scholars working to understand and promote student success. Recent evidence suggests that students’ mindsets continue to develop and change during their first year of college. We built on this work by characterizing how mindsets change and identifying the factors that may be influencing this change among upper-level STEM students. We surveyed 875 students in an organic chemistry course at four points throughout the semester and interviewed a subset of students about their mindsets and academic experiences. Results Latent growth modeling revealed that students tended to shift towards viewing intelligence as a stable trait (i.e., shifted towards a stronger fixed mindset and a weaker growth mindset). This trend was particularly strong for students who persistently struggled in the course. From qualitative analysis of students’ written survey responses and interview transcripts, we determined that students attribute their beliefs about intelligence to five factors: academic experiences, observing peers, deducing logically, taking societal cues, and formal learning. Conclusions Extensive prior research has focused on the influence of mindset on academic performance. Our results corroborate this relationship and further suggest that academic performance influences students’ mindsets. Thus, our results imply that mindset and academic performance constitute a positive feedback loop. Additionally, we identified factors that influence undergraduates’ mindset beliefs, which could be leveraged by researchers and practitioners to design more persuasive and effective mindset interventions to promote student success.

Download Full-text

Enrollment patterns and students’ risk of academic difficulty

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education ◽

10.1108/jarhe-11-2018-0252 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 97-108

Author(s):

Robert Matthew DeMonbrun ◽

Michael Brown ◽

Stephanie D. Teasley

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Student Success ◽

General Education ◽

Content Type ◽

Academic Difficulty ◽

Enrollment Patterns ◽

Gateway Courses ◽

Prescribed Curriculum ◽

General Education Requirements ◽

The Impact

Purpose Experiencing academic difficulty can deter students’ academic momentum, decreasing the speed with which they complete coursework and increasing the odds that they will not persist to a credential. The purpose of this paper is to expand upon an existing framework that investigates students’ academic difficulty in co-enrolled courses by adding additional co-enrollment variables that may influence academic performance in introductory gateway courses. Design/methodology/approach This study uses quantile regression to better understand academic difficulty in co-enrolled courses and the impact that students’ co-enrollment patterns may have on their success in focal introductory gateway courses. Findings This study revealed significant relationships between student success and co-enrollment patterns, including: the disciplinary alignment of the course with a student’s major, the student’s co-enrollment in other difficult courses and experiencing below average academic performance in a co-enrolled course. Further, impact of these relationships often differed by students’ performance quantile in the focal course. Practical implications The results point to factors related to the student and their co-enrolled courses that faculty, academic advisors and curriculum committees can consider as they design general education requirements within and across disciplinary majors. Originality/value This approach advances the understanding of how a prescribed curriculum produces interdependent pathways that can promote or deter students’ success through the organization of curricular requirements and student course taking. The paper provides a generalizable methodology that can be used by other universities to investigate curricular pathways that have the potential to reduce student success.

Download Full-text

Self-efficacy and academic performance in first-semester organic chemistry: testing a model of reciprocal causation

Chemistry Education Research and Practice ◽

10.1039/c6rp00119j ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 973-984 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Sachel M. Villafañe ◽

Xiaoying Xu ◽

Jeffrey R. Raker

Keyword(s):

Organic Chemistry ◽

Academic Performance ◽

Self Efficacy ◽

Reciprocal Relationship ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Negative Experience ◽

Reciprocal Causation ◽

And Performance ◽

The Relationship ◽

Snowball Effect

Self-efficacy is an affective learning outcome that has been associated with academic performance and retention in STEM. Self-efficacy has been defined as students' beliefs about their ability to complete a given task, and it can be affected by a student's positive or negative experience in a course. In this study, students' chemistry self-efficacy in an organic chemistry course and its reciprocal causation relationship with performance in the course was examined using structural equation modeling (SEM). Organic chemistry self-efficacy (OCSE) was measured five times during the semester and students' scores in four term exams and a final exam were used as measures of performance. Five different models were proposed and tested to explain the relationship between OCSE and performance. A reciprocal causation model with an exam snowball effect was found to best explain the relationship between OCSE and performance compared to other alternative models including a reciprocal causation model without the snowball effect and an autoregressive model. This model suggests a significant positive relationship between OCSE and performance throughout the semester, providing empirical support for the reciprocal relationship of these two measures. Implications for research and instruction are discussed in terms of the reciprocal relationship between self-efficacy and performance.

Download Full-text

First semester academic performance: The importance of early indicators of non-engagement

Student Success ◽

10.5204/ssj.v9i4.652 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jacques Van der Meer ◽

Stephen Scott ◽

Keryn Pratt

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Student Success ◽

Grade Point Average ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

Grade Point ◽

Retention Strategy ◽

First Semester ◽

Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽

The University

Success, progression and retention of students are goals of many university strategic directions and policies. For many decades it has been recognised that the greatest focus in any retention strategy should be on first-year students. University of Otago too has goals around student success. The Strategic Plan of the institution also identified that in the context of a fiscally constrained environment, all of our activities and processes need to be assessed for efficiency and effectiveness. To this end, a pilot was undertaken in one area of the university to identify possible indicators of first-year students’ non-engagement in the first semester and their possible impact on the first semester academic performance. The findings suggest that there are indeed some indicators that predict Grade Point Average at the end of the first semester.

Download Full-text

Group Discussions and Academic Performance: Exploring the Classroom Factors that Contribute to Student Success

10.31234/osf.io/jqekv ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Ryan L. Boyd ◽

Jason D. Ferrell ◽

James W. Pennebaker ◽

Nickolay Georgiev

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Student Success ◽

Academic Outcomes ◽

Online Discussion ◽

Discussion Groups ◽

Class Discussion ◽

Group Discussions ◽

Individual Group ◽

Group Members ◽

Improved Learning

Do in-class discussion groups lead to improved learning for individual group members? Analyses of over 1600 students’ language samples from 4800+ online discussion groups revealed that markers of linguistic engagement were highly predictive of academic outcomes.

Download Full-text

Mismatch between student and university expectations of academic achievement

Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice ◽

10.14297/jpaap.v8i2.434 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 97-106

Author(s):

Warren Lake ◽

Hanabeth Luke ◽

Bill Boyd

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Academic Performance ◽

Academic Success ◽

Student Success ◽

Student Performance ◽

Student Perceptions ◽

Self Efficacy ◽

Sense Of Belonging ◽

Analytical Analysis ◽

The Impact

Student perceptions of their studies and learning are important influencers of academic performance and outcome. Here we find that the grades students anticipate obtaining may differ significantly from grades awarded: students’ perceptions of their studies appear to be at odds with the university’s assessment of their academic worth. A previous study introduced students to the concept of self-efficacy and its effects on academic performance and outcome; we demonstrate that students’ self-efficacy can be raised. Importantly, the focus is not on the validity of the concept of self-efficacy as the guiding or defining principle in this research, but rather a means to potentially identify important student perceptions that may influence academic performance. Moreover, the effect, emphasises a mismatch between student and university expectations of the measure of achievement: students overestimate their anticipated grades against grades awarded. By encouraging improved self-efficacy are we emphasising differences between anticipated and awarded grades? Are we diminishing the student’s sense of achievement and therefore negatively impacting on student performance? To resolve this, in this study we shift the focus from the purely analytical analysis of the impact of self-efficacy and highlight assumptions of the primacy of grades as signifier of academic success. Academic success is motivated by a desire for learning as much as for good grades. Furthermore, a student’s academic success reflects a complex of socio-personal influences. These perspectives allow the effects of improved self-efficacy to be formative in the student’s maturing sense of belonging within education. The survey and concept of self-efficacy is now better understood as the vehicle for improved experiences of learning, becoming potent drivers of student success.

Download Full-text

Impact of funding on academic performance: An exploration of two South African universities

Journal of Education ◽

10.17159/2520-9868/i81a02 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Angelique Wildschut ◽

Ebenezer Megbowon ◽

Amanda Miselo

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Student Success ◽

South African ◽

Negative Relationship ◽

South African Universities ◽

Student Funding ◽

The Impact ◽

The Relationship ◽

Academic Year ◽

Average Individual

Empirical evidence on the relationship between student funding and academic performance is unclear. Some studies have found a positive relationship, some have suggested a negative one, while others maintain that there is no relationship between them. Acknowledging that a range of factors, other than funding, impact on student success, in this paper, we aim to contribute to a small, but emerging, body of literature on the relationship between student funding and academic performance, proxied by the average individual academic mark for the year. We applied descriptive and inferential statistics to a dataset of 29,619 students registered at two South African universities for the 2018 academic year. The results highlight that in an examination of the impact of being funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) in a bivariate context, it is possible to find a negative relationship with performance. However, at an aggregate level and controlling for the impact of other variables, a positive (albeit weak) and statistically significant correlation between being NSFAS funded and average academic performance emerges.

Download Full-text

Establishing the Growth Rate of Mauritian Students’ Achievement in Mathematics for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination

Shanlax International Journal of Education ◽

10.34293/education.v9i4.4058 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 55-58

Author(s):

Karishmaraye Gopaul - Rughoonundun ◽

Kumar Dookhitram

Keyword(s):

Growth Rate ◽

Student Achievement ◽

Academic Performance ◽

Student Success ◽

Logistic Model ◽

Math Performance ◽

School Certificate ◽

Certificate Examination ◽

Achievement In Mathematics ◽

Cambridge School

As research must measure and precisely assess the effects of changes and advances in an area of endeavor, mathematics has played. It continues to play a key role in developing realms of science and technology. Academic performance is an important factor in determining an individual’s success or failure in mathematics. Mathematics is obligatory in Mauritius until students reach Grade 11, taking the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. However, in the case of Mauritius, the question of student success growth rate has not been properly explored. The aim of this research is to establish the rate of growth in student math performance for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. The Verhulst logistic model is adapted for this purpose for the period 2012 to 2019. According to the findings, the predicted growth rate of student achievement in Mathematics Syllabus A, Mathematics Syllabus D, and Additional Mathematics are respectively lowered by about 2.42 percent, 1.86 percent, and 7.01 percent per year.

Download Full-text