Are teachers’ approaches to teaching responsive to individual student variation? A two-level structural equation modeling

In the framework of teacher’s approaches to teaching, this study investigates the relationship between student-related variables (i.e., study time, class absence, domain knowledge, and homework completion), students’ approaches to learning, and teachers’ approaches to teaching using structural equation modeling (SEM) with two independent data samples. The participants were 61 biology teachers and their corresponding 1,518 high school students (12th grade). The first sample was used to fit the model, and the second sample was used to analyze the consistency of the data derived from the first sample. Using a two-level SEM analysis, we established whether the effects found at the individual level varied significantly at class level. The students’ approaches to learning were related to the teachers’ approaches to teaching as a function of the hypotheses established in the model, although the effect size was smaller than expected. However, approximately 48 % of the variance of the surface approach and 46 % of the deep approach sat at class level. At the individual level, the results of this study suggest that students’ approaches to learning significantly explain their teachers’ approaches to teaching and, thus, constitute important contextual variables. At the class level, the way students learn appears to be closely associated with class-related variables. Our data stresses the importance of promoting educational opportunities (e.g., school-based courses) for teachers to reflect upon the teaching methodologies used in class.     

Within-Year Retention Among Ph.D. Students: The Effect of Debt,Assistantships, and Fellowships

This study employs the 2007–2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study and the National Research Center’s survey data, “A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States,” to investigate the (1) the effects of debt in relation to tuition and fees paid and (2) the effects of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and fellowships on within year retention among Ph.D. students. We created an innovative conceptual model for this study by merging a socioeconomic model for graduate students and a graduate student socialization model. We used propensity score weights for estimating average treatment effects and average treatment effect on the treated as well as a series of control and balancing variables. This study provides timely insights into which of these financial strategies are likely to improve the already low doctoral retention rates nationwide. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that includes proxies of socialization variables in examining the role of various funding mechanisms in doctoral retention using a national representative dataset.     

Grade level, study time, and grade retention and their effects on motivation, self-regulated learning strategies, and mathematics achievement: a structural equation model

The present study complements previous research findings with new data to improve our understanding of the relationship between motivational variables and academic performance in math mediated by self-regulated learning (SRL). A structural equation model with predictor (i.e., grade retention, grade level, and study time), process (i.e., perceived usefulness of SRL strategies, self-efficacy for the use of SRL strategies, and reported use of SRL), and product variables (i.e., academic achievement in mathematics) is proposed. The model was analyzed in two samples of data (calibration and validation samples). The first sample served to fit and respecify the model, and the second one was used to analyze the consistency of the findings of the first sample. A sample of 756 middle school Portuguese students participated in the current study. The results indicate that SRL is positively and significantly related to academic achievement and that the latter is, in turn, powerfully determined by perceived usefulness and self-efficacy, although students’ reported use of SRL strategies decreases from 7th to 9th grades. Self-efficacy and perceived usefulness of SRL strategies were also found to decrease as grade retention increased. These results are discussed with regard to the relevance of self-efficacy and perceived usefulness of SRL strategies in increasing academic achievement.     

Problem posing based on investigation activities by university students

This paper reports a classroom-based study involving investigation activities in a university numerical analysis course. The study aims to analyse students' mathematical processes and to understand how these activities provide opportunities for problem posing. The investigations were intended to stimulate students in asking questions, to trigger their thinking processes, to promote their ability to investigate and to support them in learning numerical analysis' concepts and procedures. The results show that the investigations provided opportunities for students to experience mathematical processes, including posing questions, formulating and testing conjectures and, to some extent, proving results. They also provide some understanding about the role of problem posing in these processes. Posing questions occurred mainly in an implicit way, in the interpretation of tasks and in identifying regularities, analysing graphs and testing cases. The conjectures were often based on pattern identification or data manipulation, and the students tended to accept them without testing or proving. The students also proposed alternative formulations for the initial questions and posed new problems from their explorations and attempts to refine previous conjectures.     

Social interactions and cognitive effects in contexts of area-comparison problem solving

The paper we present is a case study which has two objectives: the identification of the interactions between pairs of 16 and17-year-old students related to problem solving and the influence of such interactions in their cognitive development. To achieve these aims, we consider problems associated with a definite conceptual structure – problems comparing flat surface areas –, and we focus the analysis of the interactions on the point of view of the thematic and interlocutive dimensions of the discourse. Such analysis has allowed us to identify a wide typology of exchanges, and, from this, to outline four models of interaction -alternative, guided, relaunching, and co-operative. In the cases analysed, these interactions significantly influence the individual development of cognitive and heuristic abilities in the problem solving process. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.