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“What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses

The instructional practices used in introductory college courses often differ dramatically from those used in high school courses, and dissatisfaction with these practices is cited by students as a prominent reason for leaving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. To bette...

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Autores principales: Meaders, Clara L., Toth, Emma S., Lane, A. Kelly, Shuman, J. Kenny, Couch, Brian A., Stains, Marilyne, Stetzer, MacKenzie R., Vinson, Erin, Smith, Michelle K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8727061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31730385
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-05-0084
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author Meaders, Clara L.
Toth, Emma S.
Lane, A. Kelly
Shuman, J. Kenny
Couch, Brian A.
Stains, Marilyne
Stetzer, MacKenzie R.
Vinson, Erin
Smith, Michelle K.
author_facet Meaders, Clara L.
Toth, Emma S.
Lane, A. Kelly
Shuman, J. Kenny
Couch, Brian A.
Stains, Marilyne
Stetzer, MacKenzie R.
Vinson, Erin
Smith, Michelle K.
author_sort Meaders, Clara L.
collection PubMed
description The instructional practices used in introductory college courses often differ dramatically from those used in high school courses, and dissatisfaction with these practices is cited by students as a prominent reason for leaving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. To better characterize the transition to college course work, we investigated the extent to which incoming expectations of course activities differ based on student demographic characteristics, as well as how these expectations align with what students will experience. We surveyed more than 1500 undergraduate students in large introductory STEM courses at three research-intensive institutions during the first week of classes about their expectations regarding how class time would be spent in their courses. We found that first-generation and first-semester students predict less lecture than their peers and that class size had the largest effect on student predictions. We also collected classroom observation data from the courses and found that students generally underpredicted the amount of lecture observed in class. This misalignment between student predictions and experiences, especially for first-generation and first-semester college students and students enrolled in large- and medium-size classes, has implications for instructors and universities as they design curricula for introductory STEM courses with explicit retention goals.
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spelling pubmed-87270612022-01-08 “What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses Meaders, Clara L. Toth, Emma S. Lane, A. Kelly Shuman, J. Kenny Couch, Brian A. Stains, Marilyne Stetzer, MacKenzie R. Vinson, Erin Smith, Michelle K. CBE Life Sci Educ Article The instructional practices used in introductory college courses often differ dramatically from those used in high school courses, and dissatisfaction with these practices is cited by students as a prominent reason for leaving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. To better characterize the transition to college course work, we investigated the extent to which incoming expectations of course activities differ based on student demographic characteristics, as well as how these expectations align with what students will experience. We surveyed more than 1500 undergraduate students in large introductory STEM courses at three research-intensive institutions during the first week of classes about their expectations regarding how class time would be spent in their courses. We found that first-generation and first-semester students predict less lecture than their peers and that class size had the largest effect on student predictions. We also collected classroom observation data from the courses and found that students generally underpredicted the amount of lecture observed in class. This misalignment between student predictions and experiences, especially for first-generation and first-semester college students and students enrolled in large- and medium-size classes, has implications for instructors and universities as they design curricula for introductory STEM courses with explicit retention goals. American Society for Cell Biology 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC8727061/ /pubmed/31730385 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-05-0084 Text en © 2019 C. L. Meaders et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2019 The American Society for Cell Biology. “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License.
spellingShingle Article
Meaders, Clara L.
Toth, Emma S.
Lane, A. Kelly
Shuman, J. Kenny
Couch, Brian A.
Stains, Marilyne
Stetzer, MacKenzie R.
Vinson, Erin
Smith, Michelle K.
“What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses
title “What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses
title_full “What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses
title_fullStr “What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses
title_full_unstemmed “What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses
title_short “What Will I Experience in My College STEM Courses?” An Investigation of Student Predictions about Instructional Practices in Introductory Courses
title_sort “what will i experience in my college stem courses?” an investigation of student predictions about instructional practices in introductory courses
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8727061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31730385
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-05-0084
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