Education Commons^™

Motivation, Persistence, And Achievement In Community College Asynchronous Online Courses, Rachel Michelle Desmarais

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Community college students enrolled in asynchronous online courses were examined for the correlational effects of motivation factors upon achievement and persistence in major and non-major courses. A modified version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) was employed to obtain measurements on motivation and self-regulatory factors. Demographic factors and first generation student status were used to determine any interaction effects.

A series of binary logistic regressions demonstrated significant, positive correlations between self-efficacy and modified MSLQ task value on persistence for these students. A series of ordinal logistic regressions demonstrated significant, positive correlations between …

Improving Argumentation Through Goal Instructions In Asynchronous Online Discussions, Yekaterina Prudchenko

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Argumentation incorporated into class discussions can improve students' problem solving skills and enhance their epistemic and conceptual understanding. Research indicates students sometimes need scaffolding such as goal instructions to improve their argumentation skills. This study examined the effectiveness of different types of goal instructions on participants' argumentation achievement. In particular, the study compared the effects of minimal, moderate, substantial, and no goal instructions in asynchronous online discussions on participants' argumentation achievement, as measured by development, balance, and explanatory discourse scores. The study also tried to understand participants' experiences of the goal instructions by comparing the differences in emergent themes across …