Share Your SoTL Research Plan

A response to the Share Your SoTL Research Plan Activity
created by Ivan Chow (@chowivan)

Number of views: 250

I have been trying to upload my SoTL Research Plan but have not been able to access the SoTL Folder. I hope it is okay for me to upload it here.

My proposed research project explores how the “Outcomes” feature on our LMS(Canvas) can be harnessed to help improve students’ self-regulation skills. This feature allows instructors to specify learning outcomes and align them to specific questions groups in the online quizzes.   Once a student has completed a quiz, this feature generates a report (in addition to the quiz score) on how well the student has achieved specific learning outcomes based on their quiz results. This report provides information regarding the student’s strengths and weaknesses, and I hope, will help them strategize their study in a more targeted manner. This feature also generates a collective report to help the instructor understand where students are struggling.

The research study I am proposing compares student performance (quiz scores) between the control (no Learning Outcomes report) and the experiment (Learning Outcomes report provided) condition. In both conditions, participants are provided two attempts for a given quiz. After the first attempt, the Learning Outcomes report is offered to learners; instructions are given on how to interpret the report and find related course resources to strengthen their understanding of the subject matter. I then compare the grade difference between the first and second attempts in the control and experimental condition to determine whether (quantitatively) the Learning Outcomes report helped students perform better. Qualitatively, I plan to conduct a “before” and an “after” survey to determine how the “Learning Outcomes” report might change learners’ attitudes towards learning. Specifically, I would like to determine whether learners can move beyond content knowledge and reflect upon their learning strategies in a macroscopic manner.

I plan on conducting this research in an English Language and Linguistics course I teach. I will run an information session at the beginning of the course to overview the study and inform students about the experimental methods. I will clarify that whether students consent to participate will have no impact on their course grade; participation is strictly voluntary, and the identity of participants/non-participants will be kept confidential to the instructor until after the final grades have been posted. All data will be kept secure and are used only for this study.

I plan to disseminate the results by publishing this study in the Journal of Computer Assisted Language Learning and the CALICO (The Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium) journal. I also plan on presenting this work at the institutional IT@UofT conference.