Academic Readings

Okay, so when I graduated graduate school I kinda said "Good-bye Academe". But let's face it, the whole point of taking a Master's Degree in Teaching and Learning is basically telling me I'm stuck in the Academic setting for life. And let's admit it... I actually don't really have a problem with that.

But let's try to organize my goals for now especially there's no brick and mortar classroom that will dictate me with deadlines any longer.

I need to live up to my Master's degree and constantly updating myself and filling my head with knowledge. Things that I will need to show people that hey, I'm an MA graduate.

Hello Academic Literature... yet again.

So what are the things right now that I need to look into and by priority.

1) Curriculum Evaluation - I need to read on frameworks and create my own tool on how to evaluate a curriculum. Since I am in the industry of providing curriculum to schools, I need to work on helping my colleagues and stakeholders how to evaluate their current curriculum. Huge Priority.

2) Project-Based Learning - At the same time, we are going towards implementing project-based learning and the need to train teachers that PBL does not necessarily mean just providing students with projects. I need to read more on this and as well as identifying how we can apply this in the current curriculum.

3) Educational Technology trends in the academe - I need to take time and go back to my twitter feed and fill my Twitter with Educational Technology topics rather than personal conversations. I need to dig into my newsfeed amidst the controversial political topics and focus on what exactly is happening in the EdTech. This is going to be hard because I will be distracted by current needs but luckily I will be attending an EdTech Expo on February 21-22, 2017 therefore at least I will be surrounded by people who are EdTech enthusiasts as well.

Have to give myself 30 minutes for now, then off to the gym I go.

Related Literature for Student Persistence / Self-Determination Theory #THESISit

Learning's "Weak" Link to Persistence

Wolniak, Gregory C.; Mayhew, Matthew J.; Engberg, Mark E.

Journal of Higher Education, v83 n6 p795-823 Nov-Dec 2012

"As the nation becomes increasingly focused on improving college completion rates, policy makers, practitioners, and scholars are calling for renewed efforts to help students succeed (e.g., Lumina Foundation, 2009). Central to these plans is the promotion of postsecondary access and opportunity, as well as the improvement of persistence and completion rates. College student persistence, in particular, is a necessary condition for social mobility, bridging access and attainment. We are well aware of a renewed focus on persistence and completion at BRCC and we have implemented interventions intended to improve our rates in both categories. Drs. Gregory C. Wolniak, Matthew J. Mayhew, and Mark E. Engberg have written a paper based on their research in this area and published in the Journal of Higher Education. They note, "Several key areas inform our understanding of students’ likelihood of persisting after the first year of college. These areas consist of student demographics and socioeconomic status, precollege academics, college choice and financial aid, institutional characteristics, the role of academic and social integration, and college grades. Persisting students reported higher levels of academic and social integration during their first year of college in areas related to exposure to quality teaching, frequency of faculty contact, peer interactions, and cocurricular involvement, while also demonstrating greater average scores on three of the five measures of assessed student learning (leadership, need for cognition, and content mastery). Alternatively, compared to nonpersisting students, a smaller share of persisters obtained financial aid in the form of federal grants."

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“How Much Economic Value Does My Credential Have?”
Reformulating Tinto’s Model to Study Students’ Persistence in Community Colleges

1. G. Rob Stuart; Cecilia Rios-Aguilar; Regina Deil-Amen
2. Community College Review October 2014 vol. 42 no. 4 327-341

1. "Community colleges play a key role in educating the large number of non-traditional, low-income, and under-prepared students who have entered higher education in the past several decades. Despite increased access, community colleges are struggling to graduate students. Most, if not all, strategies provided by scholars to improve college completion rates assume increased student engagement will enhance persistence and success. Existing theories of persistence overlook the dynamic influence of job markets for the students community colleges serve. Using National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, this article draws on Tinto’s theory of persistence and proposes a new framework that acknowledges the role of job opportunities and of work–family–schooling quandaries in community college students’ choices about persistence. Our model builds on the following relevant notions: (a) human capital theory, (b) social integration, and (c) socio-academic integration. Our model has important implications for leaders who aim to better align students’ college experiences with their desired careers and available jobs."

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Tinto's Model of Student Retention

Stephen W. Draper,   Department of Psychology,   University of Glasgow. http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/localed/tinto.html#Standard

"These notes are a very personal view, not well researched, and possibly severely flawed. The first topic is what determines whether students stay on or drop out at universities. Various terms may reasonably be used for this area. The negative-looking ones are failure, dropout, attrition; the positive-looking ones are retention, persistence. Tinto offers a theory for understanding this. Elsewhere I also have some notes on basic comparative dropout rates."

This is a WWW document maintained by Steve Draper, installed at http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/localed/tinto.html.

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An Examination of Criticisms made of Tinto’s 1975 Student Integration Model of Attrition 

Ian McCubbin February 2003 
http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/localed/icubb.pdf

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Self-Determination Theory and Employee Motivation: An Overview 

Jack McDaniel
http://img.en25.com/Web/AchieveGlobalInc/Employee%20Motivation%20QR.pdf

"The key to SDT is recognizing that there

are two different types of motivation: 

• Autonomous motivation – Doing a

job because it is either intrinsically

interesting or is consistent with the

employee’s deep and abiding personal

values.

• Controlled motivation – Doing a job

because the employee feels pressured by

external or internal forces to do it. "

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Listen to the Founders of Self-Determination Theory, Edward Deci & Richard Ryan

http://mappalicious.com/2014/11/24/listen-to-the-founders-of-self-determination-theory-edward-deci-richard-ryan/ 

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What is Self-Determination Theory? (+PDF)

http://positivepsychologyprogram.com/self-determination-theory/

"Basic psychological needs: The hypothesis is that people have three basic psychological needs: competence, relatedness, andautonomy.

• First, the need for competence means the desire to control and master the environment and outcome. We want to know how things would turn out and the results/consequences of our actions.
• Second, the need for relatedness deals with the desire to “interact with, be connected to, and experience caring for other people”. Our actions and daily activities involve other people and through this we seek the feeling of belongingness.
• Thirdly, the need for automony concerns with the urge to be casual agents and to act in harmony with their integrated self. However, Deci and Ryan stated that to be autonomous does not mean to be independent. It means a sense of free will when doing something or acting out of our own interests and values."

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Autonomous Motivation, Controlled Motivation, and Goal Progress

Richard Koestner;  Nancy Otis;Theodore A. Powers; Luc Pelletier, and Hugo Gagnon
Journal of Personality 76:5, October 2008

http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2008_KoestnerOtisPowesPelletierGagnon_JOP.pdf

"Although the self-concordance of goals has been repeatedly shown to predict better goal progress, recent research suggests potential problems with aggregating autonomous and controlled motivations to form a summary index of self-concordance ( Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005). The purpose of the present investigation was to further examine the relations among autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and goal progress to determine the relative importance of autonomous motivation and controlled motivation in the pursuit of personal goals. The results of three studies and a meta-analysis indicated that autonomous motivation was substantially related to goal progress whereas controlled motivation was not. Additionally, the relation of autonomous motivation to goal progress was shown to involve implementation planning. Together, the three studies highlight the importance for goal setters of having autonomous motivation and developing implementation plans, especially ones formulated in terms of approach strategies rather than avoidance strategies. The present research suggests that individuals pursuing goals should focus relatively greater attention on enhancing their autonomous motivation rather than reducing their controlled motivation."

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Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation

Edward L. Deci
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1971 , Vol. 18, No. 1, 105-115

http://www.quilageo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fn103.Deci_.pdf

"Two laboratory experiments and one field experiment were conducted to investigate the effects of external rewards on intrinsic motivation to perform an activity. In each experiment, subjects were performing an activity during three different periods, and observations relevant to their motivation were made. External rewards were given to the experimental subjects during the second period only, while the control subjects received no rewards. Of interest was the difference in the experimental group's motivation between Period 1 and Period 3, relative to the difference in the control's. The results indicate that (a) when money was used as an external reward, intrinsic motivation tended to decrease, whereas (b) when verbal reinforcement and positive feedback were used, intrinsic motivation tended to increase. Discrepant findings in the literature were reconciled using a new theoretical framework which employs a cognitive approach and concentrates on the nature of the external reward."

More on SDT: 5th Conference on Self-Determination Theory

Sometimes I understand it better in videos... I'm a multi-intelligence learner like that =D

Self-Determination Theory: An Approach to Human Motivation & Personality

On Self Determination Theory & Student Persistence / Student Retention

Understanding the Self-Determination Theory from Ed Deci himself

 (one of the founders of the theory)

Edward Deci: Promoting Motivation, Health, and Excellence

In my thesis, I am going to use the Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

What can affect the persistence of students benefiting from financial aid? 

Given that financial aid is already an "extrinsic/external" motivator, students benefiting from financial aid still have various levels of motivation.

What else can influence their motivation? What can influence them to persist with their enrollment and eventually to finish their college education?

Let's first learn more about Self-Determination Theory by taking points from Ed Deci's Ted Talk.

"If you are interested in some activity and you enjoy doing it, the motivation is right there inside you ready to come out and move you into action" 

"If you really have something that is important to you, something that you truly value, you're perfectly willing to engage in the behavior that are consistent with that" 

"So both of these things, these two types of autonomous motivation, are all about being fully willing to behave." 

"There are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds now of scientific investigations that have shown that when you are autonomously motivated, your behavior will be more creative. You'll be a better problem solver. When you encounter obstacles you will be able to think outside the box and figure out what to do about them." 

"Your performance will be better." 

"Your emotions will be more positive." 

"Autonomous motivation is associated with both physical and psychological health."

"Autonomy support is a way of getting people more autonomously motivated."

"Don't ask how you can motivate other people. That's the wrong way to think about it. Instead, ask, 'How can you create the conditions within which other people will motivate themselves'. And the answer, quite simply, is autonomy support." - Edward Deci. 

Let's go back to my thesis on student's persistence. 

Given that students who are benefiting from student financial aid are already "externally" motivated by the financial aid (controlled motivation), what else contributes to their student persistence?

If the answer is autonomous motivation, then what are those conditions/situations that are autonomy supportive for students benefiting from student financial aid?

The Role of Financial Aid in Enrollment Management #THESISit

I experienced a role dissonance situation at work yesterday, my colleague told me that I shouldn't be wasting my time analyzing student life because the nature of our work was policy implementation. On one part, she was right. I was somehow part of the school "administration" and it's my duty to implement the given guidelines. My job description did not require me to know what was happening behind students who fail to follow the guidelines.

However, it reminded me of my professor's evaluation on my previously submitted proposed thesis topic. My professor said, given my masteral degree program I should not focus with policies but my research paper should go around studying student experiences.

I am now in a great big dilemma of dual roles. My role at work (which was on policies) was in conflict with my role as a grad student (which was on student life).

I've been reading on student persistence, student enrollment, student retention and student attrition for the past few months. They are actually all just connected to each other. I think there is really a huge need to understand student experiences because guidelines can change. To be learner-centered, you adjust and improve your guidelines on how it can best cater to your learners. How would you, then, know what part of the guidelines need to change, if you are not going to explore on student experiences? 

I didn't expect at first that I would end up studying Student Persistence. But I think I was meant to land on this topic because it fits my role in being in my Univ's Admissions & Scholarships Department. 

Simply because, more than just finding ways to increase student enrollment, I also carry with me that certain responsibility to ensure that my scholars (i.e. students under financial aid) persist and stay to finish college. 

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Below are excerpts that I want to take from: Hossler, D. (Spring 2000). The role of financial aid in enrollment management. New Directions For Student Services, 89. 

"Administrators and faculty often assume that the only goal of enrollment management is to increase the number of new students." (Hossler, 2000, p.78)

Enrollment management as defined by Hossler and Bean (1990, p.5):

"an organizational concept and a systematic set of activities designed to enable educational institutions to exert more influence over their student enrollments."

"organized by strategic planning and supported by institutional research, enrollment management activities concern student college choice, transition to college, student attrition and retention, and student outcomes."

"These processes are studied to guide institutional practices in the areas of new student recruitment and financial aid, student support services, curriculum development, and other academic areas that affect enrollments, student persistence, and student outcomes from college."

Key elements of Enrollment Management suggested by Hossler and Bean (1990, p5-6):

(1) "using institutional research to position the campus in the marketplace, examine the correlates to student persistence, and develop appropriate marketing and pricing strategies"

(2) "monitoring student interests and academic program demand"

(3) "matching student demand with curricular offerings that are consistent with institutional mission" 

(4) "paying attention to academic, social, and institutional factors that affect student retention."


Effects of financial aid on the college enrollment decisions (Hossler, 2000, p. 81):

One key finding is that receiving a financial aid award has a significant positive effect on the likelihood that a student will enter the institution that has made the financial aid offer. 

Effects of aid interact in complex ways:

 "Students may turn down a generous financial aid package from a small regional private college if they are admitted to a prestigious Ivy League college that offers no financial aid. Furthermore, research has consistently found that African American students and Latino students are more cost sensitive and more responsive to financial aid offers than majority students of similar socioeconomic background (Hossler, Braxton, and Coopersmith, 1989; Paulsen, 1990)."

"Similarly, it typically requires larger scholarships to influence the enrollment decisions of high-ability students. These students are heavily recruited by many colleges and universities and are often offered many large scholarships. These students are also more likely to be interested in institutions with higher levels of prestige and greater selectivity. For these reasons, many colleges and universities need to offer higher-ability students larger scholarship awards if they wish to influ- ence their enrollment decision on the basis of financial aid offers (Chapman and Jackson, 1987)."

Financial Aid and Student Retention (Hossler, 2000, p.84)

"Enrollment management practitioners, should keep in mind that how financial aid influences student retention is more complex than how it affects student enrollment decisions."

"Analyses of the effects of aid on student matriculation and persistence decisions have to be replicated annually in order for enrollment managers to be confident that campus policies are having the optimal desirable effect on student enrollments." 

"In addition, readers should keep in mind that variables drawn for sociological models of student departure such as the Tinto model (1987) or the Bean model (1980) find that effects of financial aid are smaller than factors such as academic and social integration or academic success. 

Therefore, these factors are likely to be more promising areas for intervention for most enrollment managers seeking to improve student persistence."

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I have to end here and include in my paper why I am focusing on exploring academic and social integration of students benefiting from financial aid. As Hossler suggested that financial aid has little effect on student retention. Given that my participants of the study will already be students benefiting from financial aid, the financial aid as a variable is already a controlled variable since all of my participants are benefiting from financial aid (okay, I'm pretty much aware I just repeated what I said). Thus, financial aid is my controlled variable, the academic and social integration is the independent variable, and basic needs satisfaction is the dependent variable. 

In essence, I want to explore if academic and social integration has an effect on basic needs satisfaction of students benefiting from student financial aid. If my hypothesis is correct, therefore, it follows strengthening the importance of schools to attend to the institutional integration of students benefiting from student financial aid.