Learning and Teaching Center (Old)

TO: Steve Kelly
Beth McKinsey
John Ramsay
Paul Thiboutot
Mark Govoni
Bruce Colwell

FROM: David Davis-Van Atta Institutional Research

DATE: August 27, 1998

SUBJECT: Results from 15 Carleton-specific questions on the ACE/CIRP Freshman Survey, 1997

Each year, the ACE/CIRP Freshman Survey permits institutions to add 15 items to the survey that are locally-created and specific to the individual campus. This past year, we added 15 that were developed by my counterpart at Grinnell, Carol Trosset, a 1981 Carleton alumnus. These questions dealt with incoming students' experiences and ratings of several discussion and learning styles. (See copy of questions, attached.) The attached report provides a summary of the findings from these interesting items.

Highlights:

· New students reported being most to least familiar with discussion styles where discussion was used to consider topics from a variety of perspectives, to explore new topics, to try to convince others of a personally held point of view, to play "devil's advocate" for a position not personally supported, and (lastly) discussions in which the new student hardly spoke, preferring to listen to others.

· They reported most to least experience with classes involving frequent whole-group discussions, those requiring development of a solution to problem, those requiring substantial group work, those offered in a standard lecture format, and (lastly) those involving substantial student presentations. All reported experience levels were high. Fully 7 new students in 10 reported having had "Some," "A Fair Amount," or "A Great Deal" of experience even with classes in the later format.

· New students reported an identical ranking of these learning/class styles as to their learning effectiveness, at least when explored as "how much did you learn by working in each of these formats?" The very strong inter-correlations between the respective "how much experience" and "how much did you learn" items calls into question whether or not the later items really measured the desired more qualitative learning, effectiveness ratings, or simply reiterated the more quantitative experience levels.

· Women reported more experience with discussions to consider a topic from different perspective(s), to explore a new topic, and in which they listened without speaking. Men reported more experience with discussion in which they played devil's advocate, and attempted to convince others of a particular point of view.
· Fully four of the five discussion styles were reported most often by prospective majors in the Arts and Humanities, next most often by those in the Social Sciences, and least often by those in the Sciences and Mathematics. These four were: trying to convince others of a position, considering topic(s) from a variety of perspectives, exchanging ideas as a way of exploring a new topic, and playing devil's advocate. Equally interesting, discussions in which the participant listened by hardly spoke exhibited exactly the reverse pattern by division: most often reported by among those in the Sciences and Mathematics, and least often by those in the Arts and Humanities.

· Only one class type exhibited a significant correlation with division: those involving substantial group work. Here, those in the Social Sciences reported having had the most experience, followed by those in the Sciences and Mathematics, and lastly by those in the Arts and Humanities.

· None of the relationships between the effectiveness ratings for the different learning styles and division of prospective major was statistically significant:

· As might be intuitively expected, there were significant, and positive, correlations between experience levels with each of the four class types other than lecture format (i.e., those involving whole-class discussions, developing solutions to a problem, substantial group work, or substantial in- class student presentations) and reported experience levels with many of the four discussion styles other than listening without speaking (i.e., trying to convince others of a position, exploring a new topic, exploring a new topic from a variety of perspectives, and playing devil's advocate).

· Notably, none of the correlations between experience levels with lecture format classes and reported frequencies for each of the various discussion styles reached statistical significance (although all were positive).

· Self-ratings of intellectual self-confidence were significantly and positively correlated with having used discussion to try to convince others, to consider a topic from a variety of perspectives, to explore a new topic, and to play devil's advocate. Intellectual self-confidence was also significantly positively correlated with experience level, and learning effectiveness rating, of classes involving problem- solving formats (but not so with any of the other four class types).

· Intellectual self-confidence was negatively correlated with having simply listened in discussions without speaking.

· Self-ratings of social self-confidence were significantly and positively correlated with having used discussion to try to convince others of a position, and to explore a new topic. Social self-confidence was also correlated significantly and positively with having had classes involving group-work and inclass presentations.

· Like intellectual self-confidence, social self-confidence was negatively correlated with having simply listened in discussions without speaking. It was also negatively correlated with the level of experience with straight lecture format classes.

· Two reasons for having chosen to attend college that Carleton's new students always rate very high in importance ("Gaining a general education", and "Learning more about things of interest to me") exhibited significant positive correlations to several of the discussion and learning style items. How important new students rated "Gaining a general education" was significantly and positively correlated
to having considered a variety of perspectives in discussion, discussion as a means of exploring a new topic, and reported learning levels from discussion format and problem-solving classes.

· How important new students rated "Learning about things of interest" was significantly and positively correlated to how often they considered a variety of perspectives during discussion, how often discussion was used as a means of exploring a new topic, and how much the student reported learning from discussion format classes.

· New students who reported having had substantial experience in discussion and/or presentation format classes were significantly more likely to report having asked a teacher for advice after class.

· How often new students reported studying with other students was significantly and positively correlated with how often they indicated having taken part in discussion as a means of exploring a new topic, with the experience level with group-work classes, and with the reported learning from classes with a group-work format.

Many of these are interesting findings. They may have implications for discussion and learning styles that we provide for students at Carleton. Perhaps we should find one or more ways of communicating and discussing these results with faculty? If so, I will be happy to be involved in whatever ways you see as appropriate.