NOT BASEBALL

The presenter from Kent State spoke about how they developed their instrument about whether students needed a study skills intervention. Cost was an important factor (long term cost- it takes staff time to create this).

The process was outlined – lit review, design instrument, test it. Advise #1: They recommend scheduling IT/IR support early on to create an electronic version. They used paper the first time through. This would be a concern at HFC, too, given the size and workload of those areas.

They had 80 items originally. Each was about how often students did something. They learned that time management, and attention and concentration were the most important skills- time management had the best correlation with GPA. Note taking and success relearning were also significant. In the short term things like grit and growth mindset appeared not to be important in the short term (provided the items correlated well with these skills). Some of this was due to the fact that these students already seemed to have a growth mindset.

Limited variability items and weak correlation items were struck. This reduced the number of questions to 58.

Advise #2: Watch for reversed score items if you are using paper with the points available for students to see.

Consideration #1: Successive relearning had a clear break out on redoing the task that would be tested. This has a clear implication to Math 131- spiral more, or through some other way get students to revisit problems more than on the set and on the review.

They are now going to administer to all FYE students instead of just at-risk students. They are now going to use an electronic version. Then they will revise again.

Slides are available online (through conference app) with the details.