Abstracts – Session Two
12:20 – 1:20 – 6EN – 632
Chair: Lana Kostrykina
Betty Meng: Investigating the Effects of Intervention on Tertiary Students’ Cognitive Reflection and Divergent Thinking Ability
The present study investigated the effects of modest intervention in tertiary STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) courses on students’ creative thinking ability. Specifically, the intervention involved the integration of non-routine problem solving during weekly lectures (approximately three to five minutes per lecture) throughout semester. Participants included 64 students who were enrolled in STEM courses at three different tertiary institutions in New Zealand. To test the effects of the intervention a quasi-experimental research design was employed, which included the use of online questionnaires that participants completed at the beginning and end of the semester. In addition to demographic characteristics such as gender, grade, major, and domestic or international status, the questionnaires included Frederick’s (2005) Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and Guilford’s (1967) Alternative Uses Task (AUT). The CRT was used to assess changes in participants’ ability to inhibit automatic (System 1) thinking and thus to think more carefully (and correctly) about questions with seemingly easy intuitive answers. The AUT was used to evaluate changes in participants’ divergent thinking ability, which is a critical part of creative thinking. It was hypothesized that students would demonstrate an increased score on both the CRT and the AUT. However, contrary to these hypotheses, results from repeated measures ANOVA indicated there was no overall mean gain on either measure. A discussion of these results and their implications as well as possible future research directions will be shared in the final presentation.
Robin Lane: Ecological Learning: Getting the science of learning into teachers’ hands
The field of Mind, Brain and Education (MBE) has been developing steadily since the late 1990’s, and is now well established. Many potential applications of cognitive, emotional and social neuroscience and psychology have been proposed and researched and several writers have offered recommendations for classroom implementation. Based on this material there is a growing industry of professional development in the area, based around workshops, videos and books. However, there is a need for a resource that summarises this information and can be accessed easily at the point of need – lesson planning, deeper reflections on pedagogies, and professional inquiry into student needs. I present a website that offers a digest of the MBE literature in searchable form, using an “ecological” way of understanding learning and teaching. It encourages teachers to think systematically and holistically about their pedagogy, taking into account the many influences on learning from the student and their family, culture, school, community and the wider environment. Interactions between these influences are a feature of the ecological approach. The website and it’s database have been trialled in 5 schools over the past three years and will soon be available to the education community. This paper reports on the progress and current state of the research.
Chenghui (David) Chen: Facilitating Chinese tertiary students’ metacognitive awareness of metadiscourse strategies in the EFL argumentative writing context
This study aims to investigate Chinese tertiary students’ metacognitive awareness of metadiscourse strategies in EFL argumentative writing and analyse the influences of metadiscourse strategies-based intervention on their metacognitive awareness and the development of EFL writing proficiency. A mixed-methods design is employed involving quantitative and qualitative data.
The purpose of the present study is threefold. The preparatory stage aims to validate quantitative instruments used for the main study. Informed by Hyland’s metadiscourse conceptual framework, this stage initially develops and validates A Questionnaire on Metacognitive Awareness of Metadiscourse Use in EFL Writing to assess students’ reported use of metadiscourse strategies in EFL argumentative writing. The questionnaire used for the main study will be validated through factor analysis in this stage.
Phase One of the main study aims to examine the present situation of students’ reported use of metadiscourse strategies and to explore how they relate to their English writing proficiency. Phase Two of the main study attempts to investigate how metadiscourse strategies-based writing instruction affects students’ metacognitive awareness of metadiscourse use and their writing performance. A quasi-experimental research design will be implemented. Also, in Phase Two four students (two are high writing-proficiency writers, the other two low writing-proficiency writers) from the intervention group will be invited to attend a followup case study to offer in-depth information about how metadiscourse strategies-based writing intervention influences the four students’ metacognitive awareness development of metadiscourse strategies