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An exploratory study was launched to redress a gap in the literature that is expressed as an assumption that “most” college instructors grade participation in undergraduate courses. A sample of 521 instructors at a large, northeastern public university was surveyed to assess their attitudes and practices in grading participation in undergraduate courses of 50 students or less. A survey instrument was developed for the purpose of this study and subjected to principal components analysis, and this instrument yielded 7 subscales of acceptable reliability (Cronbach's alpha ≥ .70). Results suggest that the majority of instructors across disciplines incorporate a “participation” factor into students' final course grades. A discriminant function analysis was performed to generate a function which may be used to predict the likelihood that an instructor will grade participation based upon his/her beliefs and attitudes, and the proposed model was found to be discriminating (λ(3) = .70, N = 258, p < .001) with a moderate effect size. Implications and next steps are discussed.
Advisor: | Newman, Joan |
Commitee: | May, Deborah C., McMorriz, Robert F. |
School: | State University of New York at Albany |
Department: | Educational Psychology |
School Location: | United States -- New York |
Source: | DAI-A 72/07, Dissertation Abstracts International |
Source Type: | DISSERTATION |
Subjects: | Educational evaluation, Educational psychology, Higher education |
Keywords: | College, Engagement, Grading, Higher education, Interaction, Participation, University |
Publication Number: | 3453662 |
ISBN: | 978-1-124-61996-5 |