Looking to GROW: The absence of goal setting in post-lesson mentoring conversations on work-integrated learning placements

The post-lesson mentoring conversation on work-integrated learning placements in teacher education is an opportunity for students to critically reflect on their practice. The potential for this learning to take place is diminished however, if the mentor is unskilled in the art of leading these conversations. This skill involves creating a dialogue where the mentee can discuss their practice in relation to learning goals. This study analyzed the transcripts of 54 post-lesson mentoring conversations. The study found that goals were rarely mentioned when conversations were closer to monologues than dialogues. If this is representative of the larger sample, then the mentoring monologue constitutes a waste of the latent learning potential of the post-lesson mentoring conversation. The implications of the study center on the post-lesson mentoring conversation requiring more scaffolding in the way of protocols that promote growth through a critical dialogue of the professional learning goals of the teacher education student

The Effectiveness of a Malleable Mindset Intervention in an Introductory Psychology Course

Students who believe that their intelligence is able to grow over time (malleable/ growth mindset) perform better on measures of academic success than students who believe that intelligence is a fixed trait that cannot be changed (fixed mindset; Dweck, 2000). Previous research on the effectiveness of mindset interventions have demonstrated a causal connection between a malleable mindset and increases in end of term cumulative grade point average (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002) and performance on standardized math exams (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007). The present study tested the effectiveness of a malleable mindset intervention in an applied higher education setting. Furthermore, the intervention itself was designed to be sustainable, low cost, and easy to implement in a large-lecture college course. Students enrolled in an introductory psychology course (n=278) were randomly assigned to receive one of three letters after the completion of their first midterm exam. The messages in the letters were centered on either promoting a malleable mindset, a fixed mindset, or thanking students for their class attendance and participation. Additionally, a manipulation check was administered nine weeks post-intervention to see if students read their letter and remembered its take-home message. At the end of the term, between-group differences on measures of post-intervention academic success were assessed. In line with our hypotheses and previous research, students in the malleable mindset condition outperformed students in the fixed mindset condition on two measures of post-intervention academic success. This effect was stronger for those students who passed the manipulation check at the end of the term. Therefore, the intervention design was an effective way to promote a malleable mindset to students and increase academic success in higher education

Online homework is not significantly associated with course enjoyment

The purpose of this research was to discover if using online homework contributes to an overall higher enjoyment of the Introductory Psychology class, given that other factors are held constant. Students who used the online homework PsychPortlal for the Introductory Psychology 202 class would rate the “overall enjoyment of the psychology 202 class” higher than those students who didn’t used PsychPortal as a practice tool for the class

Multiple-Choice Testing to Teach Scientific Reasoning and Prepare Psychology Students for MCAT2015

Poster accepted for the 26th annual Association for Psychological Science convention. San Francisco, CA.Keywords: Test Preparation, Scientific Reasoning, Multiple-Choice Testing, MCAT2015, Psychology Student

A Meta-Analysis on Teachers’ Growth Mindset

The concept of growth mindset—an individual’s beliefs that basic characteristics such as intelligence are malleable—has gained immense popularity in research, the media, and educational practice. Even though it is assumed that teachers need a growth mindset and that both teachers and their students benefit when teachers adopt a growth mindset, systematic syntheses of the potential advantages of a growth mindset in teachers are lacking. Therefore, in this article, we present the first meta-analysis on teachers’ growth mindset and its relationships with multiple outcomes (50 studies, 81 effect sizes; N = 19,555). Multilevel analyses showed a small effect across outcomes. Statistically significant small-to-typical positive associations between teachers’ growth mindset and their motivation in terms of self-efficacy and mastery goals were observed in subgroup analyses. No statistically significant relationships were found with teachers’ performance-approach goals, teachers’ performance-avoidance goals, teachers’ performance on achievement tests, or student achievement. Teachers’ growth mindset was related to instructional practices in terms of mastery goal structures but unrelated to performance goal structures. Moderator analyses indicated that the dimensionality of the mindset measure (recoded from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset measure vs. assessed as a growth mindset), item referent and content of the mindset measure, publication status (published vs. unpublished), world region, educational level, and study quality influenced the strengths of some of the relationships. Overall, our findings extend knowledge about teachers’ mindset and add to the evidence base on teacher characteristics and their links to relevant outcomes

Adaptive Quizzing Associated with an Increase in Overall Learning

Poster accepted for the 26th annual Association for Psychological Science convention. San Francisco, CA.Keywords: Learning, Adaptive Quizzin

Adapting Implementation Science for Higher Education Research: The Systematic Study of Implementing Evidence-based Practices in College Classrooms

Finding better ways to implement effective teaching and learning strategies in higher education is urgently needed to increase retention rates, to increase measurable learning, and to close achievement gaps between historically disadvantaged and advantaged groups. Psychologists contribute to the science and art of teaching and learning in higher education under many flags, including cognitive psychology, science of learning, educational psychology, scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology, discipline-based educational research in psychology, design-based implementation research, and learning sciences. Productive, rigorous collaboration among researchers and instructors helps. However, translational and practice-based research alone have not closed the translation gap between the research lab and the college classroom. Fortunately, we can draw on the insights of decades of research on the analogous science-to-practice gap in medicine and public health. Health researchers now add to their toolbox of translational and practice-based research, the systematic study of the process of implementation in real work settings directly. In this article, we define implementation science for cognitive psychologists as well as educational psychologists, learning scientists, and others with an interest in use-inspired basic cognitive research, propose a novel model incorporating implementation science for translating cognitive science to classroom practice in higher education, and provide concrete recommendations for how use-inspired basic cognitive science researchers can better understand those factors that affect the uptake of their work with implementation science

Implementation Science: The Key to Translating Psychological Science to Classroom Practice in Higher Education

Psychologists contribute to the science and art of teaching and learning in higher education under many flags, including cognitive psychology, educational psychology, scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology, discipline-based educational research in psychology, and learning sciences. Each of these contribute to evidence-based teaching and learning in higher education. However, a gap between the science of teaching and learning and what works in real classrooms remains. Collaboration among researchers and instructors across these fields is increasingly common and necessary. It is not sufficient to truly move effective practice into higher education classrooms at the scale and pace necessary to reduce achievement gaps, increase grades and learning in STEM and high fair rate classes, and improve retention and college student success. Implementation Science is the systematic study of the science-to-practice gap. Originating in medicine and public health and rapidly spreading, implementation science provides a framework for externally valid, rigorous study of effectiveness in real-world settings. In this article, we define Implementation Science and propose a novel model of implementation science for translating psychological science to classroom practice in higher education. We provide concrete recommendations about how instructors and researchers can get started with implementation science. Building a scientific literature of implementation for teaching and learning in higher education will increase the usability of research findings for decision-making at instructor, university, and policy levels