Literature Review: The Power of Choice

This is a review of an article titled, "Optimizing the Power of Choice:  Supporting Student Autonomy to Foster Motivation and Engagement in Learning."  It was written by Miriam Evans and Alyssa R. Boucher, and published in 2015 by the International Mind, Brain and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This article focuses on the importance of student choice and how students can show increased engagement in learning activities when they are able to make choices about their learning that are relevant to their personal values.  The authors introduce this idea by stating that all children are born with curiosity and intrinsic motivation to learn, however they lose this motivation through time when they are always told what to learn and how to show it (Evans, 2015, p. 87).  Basically, the process of learning stops being fun and students stop asking their own questions because they lose the sense of choice.

To better understand human motivation through choice, we look at the self-determination theory of motivation which promotes autonomy in increases intrinsic motivation (Evans, 2015, p. 88).  The self-determination theory states that autonomy comes from a feeling in which someone has choice and engages in self-directed activities that are aimed at meeting a goal. A teacher can promote autonomy by allowing students to have choice in order to promote these self-directed activities.

In order for a teacher to provide appropriate choice to students, the teacher must focus on what is relevant and meaningful for the students.  Available choices should relate to the personal values and interests of the student.  The authors also note that extrinsic motivation can also lead to intrinsic motivation when choices are given and students are self directing their learning (Evans, 2015, p. 89).

Another important key to providing students with choices are to provide choices that enhance competence.  In order for students to succeed, they must feel that they are capable of successfully completing the task they are choosing.  The resources provided must be appropriate and task demands must be reasonable.  If the task is too easy, the students will get bored.  If the task is too difficult, the student will most likely become frustrated and lose motivation (Evans, 2015, p. 89).

The amount of choices should also be limited to a manageable amount for both the teacher and student. If a student has too many options to choose from, it may be too overwhelming.  We experience this when we look at a menu with too many options and feel overwhelmed when deciding on what to order (Evans, 2015, p. 90). 

Some teachers struggle to embrace the idea of giving students more choices, even though they believe in doing so.  One strategy is to be well prepared before hand, limiting the amount of choices to a manageable amount, providing appropriate resources for students, and promoting student interests to maintain student motivation (Evans, 2015, p. 90)

Implications to my study:

I appreciate how straight forward and honest this article is about promoting student choice.  I often find myself wondering where the curiosity in my students disappeared to.  The authors make a good argument that many students lose motivation through their years at school because they are no longer asking questions, only answering them. If we always tell the students what they need to learn, then they don't need curiosity. 

I am focusing on increasing the academic attitudes in Tier 2 level math classes.  Although I am not directly measuring curiosity, I am interested in student motivation and academic behaviors.  The self-determination theory of motivation encompasses the idea that providing opportunities for autonomy can lead to increased motivation levels.  This article focuses on providing students with choices in how they engage with material.  I want to look at providing students with a few choices in how they want to engage with resources that are available to help them meet learning goals they set for themselves.  This article provides a great rationale for why incorporating choices into my study is important This article also provides guidelines in how to do so, such as limiting the number of choices and focusing on how the resources they are choosing from should meet them at their learning level for maximum engagement. 

References:

Evans, M., & Boucher, A. R. (2015). Optimizing the Power of Choice: Supporting Student Autonomy to Foster Motivation and Engagement in Learning. Mind, Brain, And Education, (2), 87. doi:10.1111/mbe.12073

Literature Review: Self Monitoring and Self Graphing Interventions Can Increase Student Performance in Math

This is a review of a publication published by the Hammill Institute on Disabilities.  The publication is titled, "Using Self Monitoring of Performance with Self-Graphing to Increase Academic Productivity in Math," and was written by Jenny Wells, PhD, Patricia Sheehey, PhD, and Michael Sheehey, MEd.

This study focuses on an intervention to promote self regulation skills in students who struggled to maintain focus and motivation in math class.  Self regulation describes the ability to monitor and change one's own behavior in response to the environment (Wells, 2017).  Although most students learn how to self regulate independently, some students may struggle to learn these skills.  Often, the students who struggle with self regulation skills also have learning disabilities or struggle with learning a skill at the same rate as their peers. Wells states that through Response to Intervention framework, 10%-15% of the population of students generally require additional supports and interventions within the general education classroom to meet academic standards. The three major facets of self regulation are being able to inhibit initial responses, resist distractions, and persist through non-preferred tasks (Wells, 2017, p.57). 

Wells et al. describes a case study in which an elementary student with emotional disabilities is having trouble staying on task and learning math concepts.  The chosen strategy for intervention is to focus on teaching the student self regulation skills rather than simply more direct math instruction.  The argument for doing so is that by directly teaching self regulation skills, the student would indirectly master the desired academic skill (Wells, 2017, p. 58). 

To teach self regulation skills, the teacher chose a self-monitoring activity in which the student would learn to graph his own progress.  This strategy allows for visual feedback that increases intrinsic motivation (Wells, 2017, p. 58).  It is recommended to use whatever level of graphing is most appropriate for the student.  Younger students may need more scaffolding than older students who have more independent graphing skills.  

In order for this strategy to work, the teacher must first identify the goal of the student or what the target performance level is.  In this case study, the teacher made a clear and obtainable goal for the student, in which he would solve 20 single digit addition and subtraction problems within 15 minutes without being prompted to stay on task.  It is also important to identify a baseline or current performance level (Wells, 2017, p. 58).

The next step in implementation is to decide on procedures.  In this study, the procedures include the length of time between cues, how to cue the students, how the student will respond when cued, what the student will do at the end of the time interval, and what type of graph the student will complete.  This should also be organized into a clear list that the student can follow and understand (Wells, 2017, p.58). 

Next, the teacher should prepare the student for the intervention.  This step focuses on gaining student buy-in to the  intervention. It is important for the student to understand why it is important and be able to relate to it in some way.  The teacher in this study talked to the student about his competitiveness in outdoor games and how he can be competitive in class as well (Wells, 2017, p. 61).

The last step before implementing the intervention is to teach the student about the procedures and how to graph their progress after each interval.  The student should clearly understand what is expected in order to be successfully and maintain motivation (Wells, 2017, p. 61).

Implementing the intervention can begin after the previous steps have been completed.  In this case, the teacher began by cuing the student every 90 seconds.  When cued, the student drew a line under the last problem completed and then continued working.  Overtime, the teacher increased the amount of time between cues, allowing the student to become more independent at maintaining focus and demonstrating increased self regulation skills.  During the implementation process, it is critically to give academic feedback to the student, acknowledging the correct responses while helping him to correct his errors (Wells, 2017, p. 62).

In order to maintain progress, the teacher met with the student weekly to discuss the current progress with him.  Although incentives are not preferred, they are sometimes needed for students to maintain motivation.  Incentives should be reasonable and non-monetary. Verbal praise should be given frequently and helps to strengthen positive behaviors.  Once the student has maintained the target academic performance, it is then time to adjust the time between cues until the student can completely maintain focus for the full 15 minutes (Wells, 2017, p. 63)

In conclusion, self graphing is a strategy that helps motivate struggling students to increase their self regulation skills.  This intervention requires a lot of planning and preparation on the teacher's part, however it can be adapted to any student at any level if there is student buy in and clear expectations.  Teaching a student to self monitor their own progress not only increases self regulation skills, but also increases academic performance (Wells, 2017, p. 63).

Implications to my study:

I very much like the idea of self monitoring through graphing and increases self regulation skills of students who struggle in math.  This article does a great job of identifying that students in Tier 2 level instruction require additional interventions to meet learning targets.  In my study, I want to incorporate self-graphing skills so that students can identify current levels as well as growth in their learning goals. I have focused a lot on growth mindset, and graphing one's progress is a great way to enable to students to show and celebrate their growth.  I like the idea of incentives for those who meet their goals as well.

One concern I have with the example in this study is that the targeted skill was time based.  I understand that the focus of self-regulation required an element of time, however I do not want to put time restrictions in my implementation procedures.  My focus is increasing academic attitudes towards math which takes time.  I am not worried about how many problems they can solve correctly in a matter of time. Rather, I want to build confidence and awareness in my students. 

References:

Evans, M., & Boucher, A. R. (2015). Optimizing the Power of Choice: Supporting Student Autonomy to Foster Motivation and Engagement in Learning. Mind, Brain, And Education, (2), 87. doi:10.1111/mbe.12073

Literature Review: Growth

This is a review of Carol Dweck's discussant titled, Growth, that was published by the British Journal of Educational Psychology in 2015.  This article was written to reflect on questions about growth mindsets and discuss recent research findings.

Dweck introduces the importance of measuring and rewarding student growth so that their learning can be appreciated.  School takes up many years of a person's life and the hope is that at the end of schooling, students are prepared for the expectations in the real world.  Dweck argues that in order to prepare a student, we must understand motivation for growth and how educators affect student motivation (Dweck, 2015, p. 242).

Dweck implores educators to never forget the psychology of the student, especially when education is driven by statistical models of data. She argues that educators should not simply rely on large data samples, but on smaller, focused studies that measure student growth mindsets and goals while paying attention to the students' feelings, thoughts, actions and outcomes.   She states that understanding the psychology around learning helps educators design effective interventions (Dweck, 2015, p. 243).

Some students believe in a growth mindset, or that their abilities can change, whereas some believe their abilities are fixed.  Some students value hard work while others value looking smart.  Educating students on how their abilities can change and how hard work is something to celebrate has been shown to improve student achievement in all students, however it has the biggest impact on students who are at-risk or low achieving students (Dweck, 2015, p. 243).

To support the previous argument, Dweck examines a study in which she teamed up with the University of Washington to create a math game that awards points based on effort, using strategies, and persistence instead of answering correctly and quickly.  She found that students who played this game showed more sustained effort than students who played a traditional math game.  She also found that although advanced students played the traditional game longer, it was the lower achieving students who played the effort based game longer, showing greater persistence.  Dweck concludes that the lower achieving students showed more interest because it was a game they could win.  Therefore, growth based activities can level the educational playing field (Dweck, 2015, p. 244).

The last point the Dweck makes in this article is the importance of a teacher's mindset.  If a teacher has a fixed mindset, then he or she is more likely to blame students for low achievement.  If a teacher displays a growth mindset, he or she is more able to instill growth in students and apply problem solving skills to find the correct intervention for a struggling student (Dweck, 2015, p. 244).

Implications to my study:

            I chose this article to review because I think it is important to review some of Dweck's writings.  Carol Dweck is the originator of what we refer to as growth mindset.  There are thousands of resources now available that pertain to growth mindset and my earlier blog posts refer to growth mindset or refer to similar motivation strategies that improve student achievement. 

            I think that it's also important that Dweck provides so much follow up in the research behind growth mindset, as it maintains the reliability behind the method.  Her argument about how important it is for educators to have a growth mindset themselves is one that sticks with me.  As a special education teacher, everyday is a new challenge to provide the right interventions for each individual student and it requires constant problem solving applications. 

            The growth based game that she developed with the University in Washington is phenomenal and I'd like to share the findings with my students.  I think it's important to ask students (and adults for that matter), "What if the person who persevered the most is declared the winner?" and "How would you do in a similar competition?"  I also think that this application could be paired with case studies of successful people who refused to quit.  In my study, I am going to teach lessons on growth mindset and this article not only supports the reasons why, but also gives me an example to share with my students. 

References:

Dweck, C. S. (2015). Growth. British Journal Of Educational Psychology, 85(2), 242-245. doi:10.1111/bjep.12072

Literature Review: Understanding middle school students' motivation in math class: The expectancy-value model perspective

The following is a review of Eyup Yurt's study on how the expectancy-value theory of motivation correlates with math performance among 200 middle school students.  

          Yurt introduces his research by arguing that there are cognitive, environmental, and emotional factors that influence mathematical performance among middle school aged children and that motivation is among the biggest emotional factors and therefore should be examined (Yurt, 2017 p.289).  One theory that attempts to define motivation is the Expectancy-value theory.  This theory defines expectancy as the probability of behavior that an individual performs to attain a goal, at value is defined as how important the goal is to the individual (Yurt, 2015, p. 289).  

          Yurt then identifies four major sub-categories of value.  The first,  Attainment Value/Importance relates to how important the task is to the concept of self (Yurt, 2015, p. 289).  This is when a student is motivated to do well because it will give them a feeling of status, or believe that doing well in math means they are seen a certain way by others.  The second sub-category is Intrinsic Value, which describes that motivation can come from enjoyment of solving a difficult task (Yurt, 2015, p. 289).  These are the students we see that genuinely take pleasure in persevering and problem solving.  These are our students like enjoy solving puzzles.  Extrinsic Value is the fourth, which is defined by motivation that is caused by not directly achieving the goal, but seeing the goal as one that leads to another goal that has more value (Yurt, 2015, p. 290).  These are the students that are motivated by prizes and rewards for doing well and trying hard.  Finally, there is a category of motivation called Perceived Cost that measures an individual's perception of effort they have to do to complete a task (Yurt, 2015, p. 290).  Basically, this category of value explains how an individual judges whether the benefits of completing the task is worth the extra time and effort.  If a student perceives that the math goal is too difficult and cannot be obtained within a reasonable amount of effort, then this represents their perception of cost.

            The procedure for this study involves a 19-point Likert-type questionnaire that measures students' perception of the four sub-categories of value as well as Task Difficulty and Required Effort.  These 6 variables were then compared to the students' math performance scores that were based on averaging each student's final three exams of the term. Expectancy scores were defined as the culmination of Task Difficulty, Intrinsic Interest Value, and Attainment Value/Importance.  The purpose of these procedures is to see how the variables correlate with math performance (Yurt, 2015, p. 291).

           The results are somewhat difficult to interpret without an advanced degree in statistics, however, the most significant finding is that expectancy was shown to be the strongest indicator of performance (Yurt, 2015, p, 293).  Task difficulty and math performance show a negative correlation, whereas required effort has a positive correlation with math performance (Yurt, 2015, p. 294).  Task difficulty and required effort are both perceptions of cost, however it is interesting that one has a negative correlation and the other has a positive correlation with math performance.  Yurt explains that a student who expects to succeed in a task is willing to put forth the required effort if they believe the task is attainable in the first place (Yurt, 2015, p. 294).  This explanation is supported by the expectancy-value theory that individuals need to believe that the task is obtainable AND have motivation to complete the task. The author also argues that students with high levels of expectancy also share a common perception that success in math requires a lot of effort.  Yurt concludes that expectancy and intrinsic interest value have positive, and direct correlations with math performance, whereas task difficulty has a negative direct effect on math performance (Yurt, 2015, p. 294).

Implications to my study:

The expectancy-value theory has been an interest of mine since I began researching math intervention strategies.  I very much appreciate how Yurt defines expectancy and value in this study as I think it is important to understand all the factors that influence a student's motivation in math.  I find that many students in my Tier-2 classes are motivated by their perception of cost and extrinsic values.  I might have a couple "puzzle addicts" that genuinely like the gritty work of problem solving (Intrinsic Interest), however it is not always easy for those students to apply this to a grade level algebraic problem solving method that requires the acquisition of new skills and understand symbols that represent abstract concepts.

The biggest take away that I have from reviewing this study is that in order for a student to succeed in math, they must understand that it takes effort yet believe that the task is still obtainable.  In my study, I want to provide students with choices of how to engage in the content, which should enable the students to feel as though the task is more obtainable and the required effort is reasonable.  Math is difficult and task difficulty might not be able to be reduced with my population of students.  However, my hope is that students will improve by believing that it is possible and feel confident that the required effort is worth it in order to improve math performance levels. 

References:

Yurt, E. (2015). Understanding middle school students' motivation in math class:  The expectancy-value model perspective.  International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, 3(4), 288-297.