Concerted efforts have called for the widespread adoption of evidence-based instructional practices (EIPs) to increase persistence, improve performance in undergraduate STEM classes, and prepare a competent STEM workforce. Consequently, there is overwhelming evidence of the adoption of EIPs in college chemistry classes. Unfortunately, most reported EIPs have been implemented as silo interventions, and therefore studies comparing the effectiveness of different EIPs on commonly measured learning outcomes are limited. The current study sought to address this gap. Specifically, the researcher investigated the impact of metacognition training versus the integration of voices of role models in chemistry on students’ 1) student performance in the General Chemistry I (GC I) and General Chemistry II (GC II); 2) sense of belonging in GC I and GC II and STEM programs, and perceptions of chemistry and science; and 3) learning experiences in the classes. A true experimental research design and a mixed-methods approach were employed. In both GC I and GC II, students were randomly assigned to two groups via Canvas based on gender, race/ethnicity, and first-generation status. For Group 1, in each class, students watched a video clip on metacognitive strategies. Group 2 watched four 2–7-minute video clips recorded by peer students, who previously passed the two classes, and two STEM professors (a Chemist—female and a Physicist—male). All the role models were from marginalized groups, and talked about the challenges they encountered in the two classes, how they navigated those challenges, and the resources they adopted to excel in these classes. The first video dosage was watched immediately after the students sat for Exam 1, and the second dosage of the same video clip(s) was watched after Exam 3 and a week before the final exam. Data sources included a structured survey, an open-ended reflection questionnaire, three in-term and final exam scores, and student demographic information, such as gender, first-generation status, and race/ethnicity. Findings indicated that for GC I, the role-model group significantly outperformed the metacognition group before the intervention (Exam 1), but the ‘opportunity’ gap was reduced with incremental doses of watching the metacognitive strategies video, even though the performance in the subsequent exams accompanied by the dosages of the videos was not statistically significant. In contrast, for GC II, although both groups performed nearly identically in Exam 1, the incremental doses of the role-models intervention seemed to boost the performance scores compared to the metacognition intervention. Detailed findings, including the reported sense of belonging and perceptions of chemistry and science, as well as implications for practice are discussed in this dissertation.
Shanmugam Puvanendran (Fri,) studied this question.