productive persistence: a practical theory of student success

7/29/2019 Productive Persistence: A Practical Theory of Student Success

1/22

Productive Persistence:

A Practical Theory of Student

Success


2/22

Unproductive Persistence

1000 Dev Ed Students

50% started college > 3 years ago

20% started college > 5 years ago 8% started college > 10 years ago

2.5% started college 20 years ago or

more

2


3/22

Do College

Started in 2009 as Do College

90-Day Cycle of inquiry that resulted in a framework, a sort of disciplineinquiry period.

Interviews

Research

Scans that had anything to do with student success, persistence, etc.

Allowed them to test interventions in a mindful way

3


4/22

Productive Persistence:

Tenacity + Good Strategies

4


5/22

Solutionitis:

The Search for the Perfect Widget:

Study Skills

Intrusive Advising

Metacognitive monitoring of progress

toward goals and of effectiveness of

strategies

Navigating the college campus

Mandatory Orientation

Proper Placement

Peer tutors

Wrap-around supports

Supplemental Instruction

Student Cohorts

Invest in Faculty Development

Academic CounselingSelf Regulated Learning

Career planning

Sense of self-efficacy

Acceleration


6/22

Improvement Research:

Our Proposed Way Forward

What we know: Lots of things canwork, under some(usually unspecified) set of conditions.

6


7/22



Carnegie asks: How can we distill the most promisingideas and make them work reliably, in the hands ofdiverse practitioners with diverse students in diversecontexts?

Uri Treisman: We need to scale things that mere mortals canpull off.

7


8/22



Carnegies strategy:

Think through which ideas drive success forourstudents in ourcolleges.

Create practical ways to precisely measure these ideas.

Cull promising ways to influence them, from research andpractice.

Use improvement research to produce an evidence base forthese practices:

Geoff Cohen: Separate common sense from common nonsense.

8


9/22

3 Main Parts of Productive Persistence

1. Practical theory

2. Practical measures3. Activities/interventions

9


10/22


1. Practical theory

Based on research and evidence from academicresearchers and faculty practitioners (you needboth)

Takes a chaotic messy field and breaks it up into

smaller chunks you can work on

Approach: What works for whom, under whatconditions."

10


11/22

Students feel comfortableasking questions

Students do not feelstigmatized due tomembership in anegatively stereotypedgroup.

Students feel they are anecessary and importantpart of the classroom

community.

Students feel that the

professor cares that they,

personally, succeed in the

course and in college.

Students have skills, habitsand know-how to succeed

in college setting.

Students believe they arecapable of learning math.

Students believe the coursehas value.

Students feel socially tied to

peers, faculty, and thecourse.

Faculty and college supportstudents skills and

mindsets.

Aim:Studentscontinue toput fortheffort during

challengesand whenthey do sothey useeffective

strategies.

Primary Driver(Drivers of the solution)

Secondary Drivers

Productive

Persistence

7/16/12

Students do not question

whether they belong.


12/22


2. Practical measures

Surveys on the first day of class and thethird week - "You can't improve what you

can't measure"

12


13/22

Productive Persistence Questions: 20 Item

Test

13

Interest: Overall, how interesting are math and statistics toyou?

Fixed mindset: Being a "math person" or not is somethingabout you that you really can't change. Some people aregood at math and other people arent.

Anxiety: How anxious would you feel the moment before yougot a math or statistics test back?

Professors care: How many of your college professors doyou think would care whether you succeeded or failed in their

classes? Belonging uncertainty: When you think about your college,

how often, if ever, do you wonder: "Maybe I don't belonghere?"

Productive struggle: Knowing the right answer to a mathproblem without having to think about it, or knowing how to


14/22

Quantway: Validity of PP Measures

22

2323

25

26

25

25

23

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Mindset Belonging Interest Anxiety

BaselineMathTest

Low (-1 SD)

High (+1 SD)

ES = .13*** ES = .10* ES = -.13*

ES = .25**


15/22

Classes With High PP Levels

Also Have High Persistence Rates

59% 59% 57%

74%71% 71% 72%

55%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Mindset Belonging Interest Anxiety

PersistenceRate

(persistencetothene

xtterm)

Low (-1 SD)

High (+1 SD)

***Composite: t = 3.01, p < .005

r= .32r= 34 r= .46r= .33


16/22


3. Activities and Interventions

Initial improvable set of interventions -developing and testing others

Bringing research and practitionerstogether to develop pilot interventions

16


17/22

Initial Starting Strong Activities

Getting to know you activity

Contract activity

Mindset activity

Working in groups/Group roles

Why study statistics/mathematics?

Script for engaging in productive struggle

Language script

Syllabus activity


18/22

18

Most people dont know

that when they practice and

learn new things, parts of

their brain change and get

larger, a lot like the muscles

do. This is true even for

adults. So its not true that

some people are stuck being

not smart or not math

people. You can improve

your abilities a lot, as long as

youpractice and use good

strategies.


19/22

19

I feel very confident because i dedicate my

time to learn the concepts thoroughly. I feel thatif one person put in the work to really

understand the concepts they can pass. I was

never a "math person" but coming into Statwayhas completely made a 360 degree turn [sic]

about how i feel about math. It is great!

- Developmental Math Student in Statway


20/22

What Changed From Baseline to 3+

Weeks?

ES = +.39*** ES = -.78*** ES = -.32***

ES = +.65*** ES = -.26***ES = +.08 n.s.

What can we

do better?

ES = Effect size in standard deviation units (Cohens D)

Interest

Productive

Struggle

Professors

Care

Belonging

Uncertainty

Fixed

Mindset

Math

Anxiety


21/22

Takeaways

Productive persistence matters for developmental mathstudent performance

Drivers of it can be measured quickly and validly

We need to get better at improving productivepersistence. To do so, well we need to continue

measuring it.

21


22/22

[email protected]

productive persistence: a practical theory of student success

Documents