CAREER: Empowering students to be adaptive decision-makers

Clemson University, Clemson SC

Investigators

Abstract

Empowering Students to be Adaptive Decision-Makers The objective of this project is to help students learn to make academic decisions that lead to success. It contains components that are both practical (identifying pathways that students actually take in a particular curriculum) and theoretical (understanding how self-regulated learning and decision making affect real-life choices). The research will broadly impact the way that policy decisions are made in engineering programs across the US. This project is unique in that it packages the research findings not only for other researchers, but for direct student use. An online Academic Dashboard will be developed to help students leverage the research results and put them in the driver's seat of their education. It is expected that these skills will be especially beneficial for students from low-performing high schools who have never been challenged academically before. The end result will be students who self-regulate their decision making process to choose paths that are most likely to lead to success and make adaptive daily choices that help them achieve their goals. Ultimately the work will lead to a more diverse group of engineering graduates by expanding the opportunities for students who have difficulty navigating the engineering curriculum. This project seeks to advance understanding of academic pathways, achievement, and self-regulation in engineering. Students who persist in a major but never progress to graduation are of particular interest. Preliminary work has shown that the students who remain in college the longest without graduating are also the least likely to change majors. The project employs a multi-faceted approach to both study and assist these students who persist but do not progress through the lens of self-regulation, with particular focus on the self-regulation model of decision making and self-regulated learning. The research goals are to: 1) identify curriculum-specific patterns of achievement that eventually lead to dropout as well as corresponding alternative paths that could lead to success and 2) advance knowledge of self-regulation patterns and outcomes in engineering students. The education goals are to develop curricula and advising materials that help students learn how to effectively self-regulate their decision processes through contextual activities and story prompting.