Supplemental Instruction and timely graduation - A case study at an engineering education faculty
(2016) 9th International Conference on Supplemental Instruction- Abstract
- This presentation focus on quantitative long-term effects of SI in terms of graduation rates. One of the main aims of SI is to introduce students to efficient study strategies and techniques. If SI is introduced at an early stage for new students in higher education, it is therefore likely that this action promotes timely graduation. This has also been indicated in studies at two US universities – University of Missouri Kansas City and Utah State University. This impact should obviously be of huge interest for any college or university that want to introduce SI for their students. However, more studies from different settings and environments are needed to be able to generalize the findings from previous studies. This investigation is one... (More)
- This presentation focus on quantitative long-term effects of SI in terms of graduation rates. One of the main aims of SI is to introduce students to efficient study strategies and techniques. If SI is introduced at an early stage for new students in higher education, it is therefore likely that this action promotes timely graduation. This has also been indicated in studies at two US universities – University of Missouri Kansas City and Utah State University. This impact should obviously be of huge interest for any college or university that want to introduce SI for their students. However, more studies from different settings and environments are needed to be able to generalize the findings from previous studies. This investigation is one such study for students at an engineering education faculty.
The results from the study show indeed that SI affects graduation. After six years (the engineering educations investigated are 5-year leading to an MSc degree) there are twice as many graduates (61 % compared to 29 %) among the group of students attending SI frequently in the first introductory course compared to students not attending SI. The difference in drop-out rates between these groups are remarkable – 37 % in the non-SI group compared to 7 % for frequent SI attendees.
Are these results on graduation and drop-out rates due to SI or are some other factors affecting the results? Since attending SI is a self-selecting process it is not possible to say that the results shown is just due to SI. However, one can try to control for other factors that may affect the results. In this study we included factors like motivation/attitude, ability (both self-estimated and based on GPA from upper secondary school), study strategy, age when entering university, the academic background of the students family and if the student is male/female. Did any of the factors differ between SI attendees and non-attendees? A few actually, with the most pronounced being study strategy (frequent SI attendees had better study strategy in upper secondary school compared to non-attendees). However, the correlation between study strategy and SI-attendance was not especially pronounced (although statistically significant), being 0.24, and did not have more than a minor effect on the results above. Other factors with statistical significant differences between SI participants and non-participants where that grades from upper secondary school was slightly better for the former group and that female students (having higher grades and better study strategies) were slightly over-represented among the SI participants. However, these two factors did not have a pronounced effect on the results above.
We will involve the participants by inviting their ideas and questions and introducing themes for discussion like
• What are the potential benefits of SI that can promote a timely graduation?
• What factors should one include when investigating differences between SI attendees and non-attendees?
(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/c0d27c7d-b44e-4b31-ac1c-d1699b6619f0
- author
- Malm, Joakim LU ; Bryngfors, Leif LU and Fredriksson, Johan LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2016
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- 9th International Conference on Supplemental Instruction
- conference location
- Kansas City, United States
- conference dates
- 2016-05-25 - 2016-05-27
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c0d27c7d-b44e-4b31-ac1c-d1699b6619f0
- date added to LUP
- 2019-10-27 20:09:07
- date last changed
- 2021-10-28 14:26:19
@misc{c0d27c7d-b44e-4b31-ac1c-d1699b6619f0,
abstract = {{This presentation focus on quantitative long-term effects of SI in terms of graduation rates. One of the main aims of SI is to introduce students to efficient study strategies and techniques. If SI is introduced at an early stage for new students in higher education, it is therefore likely that this action promotes timely graduation. This has also been indicated in studies at two US universities – University of Missouri Kansas City and Utah State University. This impact should obviously be of huge interest for any college or university that want to introduce SI for their students. However, more studies from different settings and environments are needed to be able to generalize the findings from previous studies. This investigation is one such study for students at an engineering education faculty. <br/> The results from the study show indeed that SI affects graduation. After six years (the engineering educations investigated are 5-year leading to an MSc degree) there are twice as many graduates (61 % compared to 29 %) among the group of students attending SI frequently in the first introductory course compared to students not attending SI. The difference in drop-out rates between these groups are remarkable – 37 % in the non-SI group compared to 7 % for frequent SI attendees. <br/> Are these results on graduation and drop-out rates due to SI or are some other factors affecting the results? Since attending SI is a self-selecting process it is not possible to say that the results shown is just due to SI. However, one can try to control for other factors that may affect the results. In this study we included factors like motivation/attitude, ability (both self-estimated and based on GPA from upper secondary school), study strategy, age when entering university, the academic background of the students family and if the student is male/female. Did any of the factors differ between SI attendees and non-attendees? A few actually, with the most pronounced being study strategy (frequent SI attendees had better study strategy in upper secondary school compared to non-attendees). However, the correlation between study strategy and SI-attendance was not especially pronounced (although statistically significant), being 0.24, and did not have more than a minor effect on the results above. Other factors with statistical significant differences between SI participants and non-participants where that grades from upper secondary school was slightly better for the former group and that female students (having higher grades and better study strategies) were slightly over-represented among the SI participants. However, these two factors did not have a pronounced effect on the results above.<br/> We will involve the participants by inviting their ideas and questions and introducing themes for discussion like <br/>• What are the potential benefits of SI that can promote a timely graduation? <br/>• What factors should one include when investigating differences between SI attendees and non-attendees?<br/>}},
author = {{Malm, Joakim and Bryngfors, Leif and Fredriksson, Johan}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{Supplemental Instruction and timely graduation - A case study at an engineering education faculty}},
year = {{2016}},
}