Student Success & Enrollment Analytics November 2023 update

Student Success & Enrollment Analytics update to Student Affairs leadership November 28, 2023

Argument education in higher education: A validation study

Argument education can play an important role in higher education for leadership development and responding to increasing calls for post-secondary accountability. But to do so, argumentation teachers, scholars, and practitioners need to develop a clearer definition and research agenda for the purposes of teaching and assessing argumentation. The research conducted here contributes to this project by first establishing a definitional construct and observable behaviors associated with learning and practicing argumentation. Second, an argument education assessment instrument was created based off of the literature-supported definition of argumentation. Third, debate and argument education subject matter experts reviewed the definition, behaviors, and assessment instrument. Fourth, the newly developed instrument was administered to undergraduate college students over the course of three studies (n=949) to collect evidence testing whether the instrument may be used in a reliable and valid way to assess the learning of argumentation. Finally, the author concluded that the data suggests that the instrument may be used for assessing argument education, but further research is needed to improve the evidence for reliability and validity of the instrument’s use. Furthermore, the data collected from assessing argument education provides important implications for how argumentation is defined and assessed within an educational context and what role argument education may play in leadership development

Hurricane Katrina and the Third World: A Cluster Analysis of the Third World Label in the Mass Media Coverage of Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the United States in August of 2005. While an emerging literature base details the consequences and lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, a critical missing piece for understanding Hurricane Katrina American landfall is a rhetorical perspective. I argue a rhetorical perspective can significantly contribute to a better understanding of Hurricane Katrina’s implications for creating policy, community and identity. As a case study, I employ Kenneth Burke’s cluster analysis to examine the use of the label “Third World” to describe New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the United States in the mass media coverage of Hurricane Katrina

College Policy Debate Community Climate: Data from the 2014 and 2015 College Policy Debate Survey

The College Policy Debate Survey research project was designed to answer relevant questions about current debate practices and the debate community. This information can be used to inform future interventions as well as programming (e.g. bystander intervention training, organization membership criteria, judge mentorship, and involvement of historically marginalized or at-risk populations). This paper analyzes qualitative data from the 2014 College Policy Debate Survey and incorporates both the quantitative and qualitative data from the 2015 version. The study was developed to help the debate community understand what members believe constitutes a good resolution and salient beliefs about why people participate in debate as well to identify concerns within the debate community. Over the course of two years 584 students, coaches, and alumni completed the survey. In 2014, 378 participants completed the questionnaire and 206 participated in 2015. Participants indicated they want a sustainable resolution that was accessible to all skill levels and diverse perspectives. Their most important reasons for participating in debate were because it was fun and because of the educational benefits. Harassment and institutional/structural sexism were identified as the most pressing concerns for the debate community to address. This research brief concludes with recommendations, informed by the data, to positively impact the college policy debate community climate

Editorial Introduction

Editorial introduction to CCJ Volume 6:1 202

Editorial Introduction: Embracing the uniqueness

The Co-Editors provide an introduction to the 2021 issue of CCJ

Editorial Introduction: Transitions Abound

Introduction to the 8th volume of CCJ and reflection on transitions

Strengthening curricular relationships between libraries and communication centers: A case study at James Madison University

The James Madison University (JMU) Communication Center has a strong collaborative relationship with JMU’s campus libraries and librarians. With our submission, we discuss the existing curricular collaborations and potential for expanding collaborations within and beyond curricular interventions. First, we analyze the collaboration on supporting information literacy curriculum into the general education program. Second, we discuss curricular support partnerships in upper division courses through debate across the curriculum, research posters, and conference presentation support. Finally, we reflect on these curricular-based collaborations and suggest other possible productive relationships between a communication center and library. First, information literacy is embedded into the General Education curriculum as learning outcomes. Students in our core program are required to demonstrate information literacy competencies prior to the end of their first academic year. Students watch a set of video tutorials, complete practice exercises assigned within the required Human Communication course and pass an information literacy test. The libraries develop both the Toolkit and the Test and partner with faculty for integrating content into general education. While most students complete the tutorials and pass the test, some struggle. In order to get these students the help they need, the libraries partnered with the Communication Center to teach peer tutors to be a first line of defense for students who need additional assistance, extending the availability of support. Most students who receive peer instruction from the Communication Center pass the test on the next subsequent attempt and those who do not can be referred for more formal interventions.  This shared commitment to first-year information literacy skills continues to help our students make connections between resource material and effective speeches, presentations, and papers. Second, the libraries and Communication Center have also worked together on curricular support for upper-level courses with assignment redesign and developing presentational products . For example, Communication Center faculty and librarians have partnered on efforts to work with our center to offer workshops to help faculty include a debate of some type into a course. We are able to review how faculty moved forward with the course redesign based on the workshop activities, Center consultations, and embedded tutor fellows. Other curricular partnerships with subject-expert librarians and the Communication Center included supporting the development of scholarly products, like research posters and conference presentations. We collaborated by coordinating library and Communication Center instruction in a course, as well as providing professional development to Communication Center peer tutors.Finally, our experiences collaborating on curricular support across campus has opened pathways for future partnerships as well. Using our experiences over the last four years, data collected for assessment and scholarship, and institutional changes across the university, we conclude with recommendations on paths forward for our own campus and others wishing to develop or expand their own collaborative relationships between Libraries and Communication Centers.

The transformative potential of mid-term grades & feedback for student success

Midterm grades and feedback have the potential to positively impact equitable student success and retention. What if instead of treating midterm grades as one-way opportunities for summative feedback, midterm grades were framed as opportunities for two-way formative feedback. At James Madison University, this Spring 2023 research project piloted an alternative midterm grade and feedback system with 10 faculty across three colleges. The intervention included a mandatory part A that included transparent communication about the role of midterm grades in the specific class at the semester’s start and an optional part B which had the student submit their perceived midterm grade and learning goals for the semester. This presentation shares the research findings, including student, advisor, and faculty data, that suggests midterm grades and feedback can be transformative for both the student and faculty member

How Genre-Trained Tutors Affect Student Writing and Perceptions of the Writing Center

Writing center scholars have long debated whether writers are best served by “generalist” tutors trained in writing center pedagogy or “specialist” tutors with insider knowledge about a course’s content or discipline-specific discourse conventions. A potential compromise that has emerged is training tutors in the purposes and features of specific genres. The writing center literature showcases many different approaches to genre training. However, little empirical research, if any, has explored how tutors’ genre knowledge affects session outcomes. The present study used a mixed-methods approach to compare session outcomes for students who worked with generalist and genre-trained tutors. We analyzed pre-consultation and revised literature review drafts to determine whether students who worked with tutors trained in the genre of literature reviews improved their drafts more or revised their drafts differently than students who worked with generalist tutors. Additionally, we performed a qualitative analysis of student reflections about their writing processes to explore how tutor training impacts students’ impressions of their consultations. Findings indicated that students who worked with genre-trained tutors revised their drafts more substantively than did students who worked with generalist tutors. Moreover, students who worked with genre-trained tutors left with notably better and richer impressions of their consultations