Atlanta, Georgia
June 23, 2013
June 23, 2013
June 26, 2013
2153-5965
Educational Research and Methods
24
23.920.1 - 23.920.24
10.18260/1-2--22305
https://peer.asee.org/22305
483
Jesse Pappas studied self-insight, intentional self-development, and the role of emotion in self-perception at the University of Virginia, where he received a Ph.D. in social psychology. His dissertation project involved adapting established professional development tools to facilitate the personal and academic success of college students and others. As a research fellow in the School of Engineering at James Madison University, Jesse currently leads efforts to equip future scientists and engineers with the personal and social savvy they need to thrive in today’s complex academic and professional environments.
Multisource feedback for STEM students enhances engagement and academic performance Motivating students to engage in course material and perform to their potential is among our most urgent challenges As STEM educators. Professional organizations commonly seek to motivate employees by providing performance feedback from a diverse group of raters that may include supervisors, peers, subordinates, clients, and others. According to some sources, at least 90% of Fortune 1000 companies currently use multisource (i.e. 360-‐degree) feedback techniques to facilitate professional development and increase productivity. In academic contexts, relatively minimal, student-‐focused interventions have been shown to significantly improve academic performance under numerous experimental conditions. With support from National Science Foundation grant EEC #1158728, the present study used a newly developed online delivery system to provide personalized multisource feedback to a sample of 206 undergraduate STEM students in a science and technology problem-‐solving course. Personality Pad is an automated multisource feedback platform that allows users to generate their own multisource feedback. This process incorporates prevalent 360-‐degree feedback strategies and “best practices” for effective feedback administration. At PersonalityPad.org, participants register a dedicated WordPress dashboard, which displays feedback generated by the participant and by participant-‐selected informants, as well as normative information for comparison, interpretation tools, and detailed instructions. The platform integrates multisource feedback tools into a WordPress website using the advanced functionality of Qualtrics, an advanced online survey tool. A longitudinal experiment within an interventional framework evaluated the hypothesis that multisource conscientiousness feedback would provoke goal-‐directedness and motivate adaptive action. Compared to those who received self-‐generated feedback or no feedback, those who received conscientiousness feedback from multiple sources – including friends, parents, peers, and teachers – participated more in class and submitted higher quality homework assignments afterward, leading to significantly higher final course grades (M = 83.90) compared to a control group in the same class (M = 78.79). A structural analysis of relationships among key variables indicates that post-‐intervention goal-‐directedness plays a critical intermediary role between receiving personalized feedback and achieving subsequent self-‐development goals. Implications are discussed from academic and social perspectives.
Pappas, J. (2013, June), Multisource feedback for STEM students improves academic performance Paper presented at 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--22305
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