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1. Understanding Climate Change Through Collaborative Versus Individual Inquiry With Constructive or Example-Based Scaffolds

   Bichler, S. (January 2019, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   We investigated a constructive and an example-based scaffold when learning from dynamic visualizations about climate change. Learners collaboratively or individually generated a diagram that represented energy flow (constructive scaffold) or observed a peer learner generating the diagram (example-based scaffold). We hypothesized that collaborative learners would benefit more from the constructive than the example-based scaffold, but that the opposite would be the case for individual learners. Seventy-one university students were randomly allocated to conditions in the 2X2 between-subjects design. Climate change understanding was measured at pre- and posttest. Preliminary results supported our hypothesis. We conclude that the constructive scaffold elicited questions that led to deep engagement in the collaborative condition, resulting in better understanding. Individual learners possibly failed to recognize crucial concepts in the constructive condition because they had questions but nobody to discuss with. They profited more from the example-based scaffold which emphasized central concepts of climate change. 

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2. Revision Analysis of Students’ Position-Time Graphs

   Harrison, E. (January 2019, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   We investigated a constructive and an example-based scaffold when learning from dynamic visualizations about climate change. Learners collaboratively or individually generated a diagram that represented energy flow (constructive scaffold) or observed a peer learner generating the diagram (example-based scaffold). We hypothesized that collaborative learners would benefit more from the constructive than the example-based scaffold, but that the opposite would be the case for individual learners. Seventy-one university students were randomly allocated to conditions in the 2X2 between-subjects design. Climate change understanding was measured at pre- and posttest. Preliminary results supported our hypothesis. We conclude that the constructive scaffold elicited questions that led to deep engagement in the collaborative condition, resulting in better understanding. Individual learners possibly failed to recognize crucial concepts in the constructive condition because they had questions but nobody to discuss with. They profited more from the example-based scaffold which emphasized central concepts of climate change. 

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3. Six minutes to promote change: People, not facts, alter students' perceptions on climate change

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7553  

   Sauer, Kodiak A.; Capps, Daniel K.; Jackson, David F.; Capps, Krista A. (May 2021, Ecology and Evolution)

   Abstract Anthropogenic climate change threatens the structure and function of ecosystems throughout the globe, but many people are still skeptical of its existence. Traditional “knowledge deficit model” thinking has suggested that providing the public with more facts about climate change will assuage skepticism. However, presenting evidence contrary to prior beliefs can have the opposite effect and result in a strengthening of previously held beliefs, a phenomenon known as biased assimilation or a backfire effect. Given this, strategies for effectively communicating about socioscientific issues that are politically controversial need to be thoroughly investigated. We randomly assigned 184 undergraduates from an environmental science class to one of three experimental conditions in which we exposed them to short videos that employed different messaging strategies: (a) an engaging science lecture, (b) consensus messaging, and (c) elite cues. We measured changes in student perceptions of climate change across five constructs (content knowledge, acceptance of scientific consensus, perceived risk, support for action, and climate identity) before and after viewing videos. Consensus messaging outperformed the other two conditions in increasing student acceptance of the scientific consensus, perceived risk of climate change, and climate identity, suggesting this may be an effective strategy for communicating the gravity of anthropogenic climate change. Elite cues outperformed the engaging science lecture condition in increasing student support for action on climate, with politically conservative students driving this relationship, suggesting that the messenger is more important than the message if changing opinions about the necessity of action on climate change is the desired outcome. Relative to the other conditions, the engaging science lecture did not support change in students' perceptions on climate, but appealing to student respect for authority produced positive results. Notably, we observed no decline in students' acceptance of climate science, indicating that none of the conditions induced a backfire effect. 

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4. Belonging in Engineering

   O'Hara, Robert M.; Bolding, Candice W.; Ogle, Jennifer H.; Benson, Lisa; and Lanning, Rachel (June 2020, 2020 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   When examining factors affecting student academic success, it is important to consider how these factors interact with one another. Students’ affective attributes are complex in nature; thus, research methods and analyses should holistically examine how these attributes interact, not simply as a set of distinct constructs. Prior research into engineering students’ affective attributes, in which we used a validated survey to assess student motivation, identity, goal orientation, sense of belonging, career outcome expectations, grit and personality traits, demonstrated a positive correlation between perceptions of belongingness in engineering and time spent in the program. Other prior research has examined interactions between affective attributes, for example, engineering identity as a predictor of grit (consistency of interest). However, more work is needed to examine the complex relationships between sense of belonging, engineering identity, future career outcome expectations and motivation, particularly for students in an engineering program undergoing curricular change. This paper describes a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model to examine how engineering identity, career outcome expectations and time-oriented motivation (specifically, students’ future time perspectives, or FTP) impact their sense of belonging in engineering, with grit (consistency of interest) as a moderator of these relationships. To conduct these analyses, we used survey data collected over two years from sophomores, juniors, and seniors enrolled in an undergraduate civil engineering program (2017-18, n=358; 2018-19, n=556). Based on descriptive statistics and initial statistical comparisons, we confirmed our prior findings that students’ sense of belonging at the course level increased with time in the program (from sophomore to senior year), and that engineering identity increased with time in the program as well. In addition, we observed that seniors had higher perceived instrumentality, a sub-construct of FTP indicating their perceived usefulness of their courses in reaching their future goals, than sophomores and juniors. We found that course belongingness and FTP have the strongest influence on belongingness compared to other affective attributes we assessed. When identity and motivation were factored in, career outcome expectations were not influential to engineering belongingness. Finally, we found that time-oriented motivation (FTP) was also a mediator of this relationship through its influence on grit (consistency of interest). 

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5. Efficiently exploring the causal role of contextual moderators in behavioral science

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216315120  

   Hecht, Cameron A.; Dweck, Carol S.; Murphy, Mary C.; Kroeper, Kathryn M.; Yeager, David S. (January 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Behavioral science interventions have the potential to address longstanding policy problems, but their effects are typically heterogeneous across contexts (e.g., teachers, schools, and geographic regions). This contextual heterogeneity is poorly understood, however, which reduces the field’s impact and its understanding of mechanisms. Here, we present an efficient way to interrogate heterogeneity and address these gaps in knowledge. This method a) presents scenarios that vividly represent different moderating contexts, b) measures a short-term behavioral outcome (e.g., an academic choice) that is known to relate to typical intervention outcomes (e.g., academic achievement), and c) assesses the causal effect of the moderating context on the link between the psychological variable typically targeted by interventions and this short-term outcome. We illustrated the utility of this approach across four experiments (total n = 3,235) that directly tested contextual moderators of the links between growth mindset, which is the belief that ability can be developed, and students’ academic choices. The present results showed that teachers’ growth mindset-supportive messages and the structural opportunities they provide moderated the link between students’ mindsets and their choices (studies 1 to 3). This pattern was replicated in a nationally representative sample of adolescents and did not vary across demographic subgroups (study 2), nor was this pattern the result of several possible confounds (studies 3 to 4). Discussion centers on how this method of interrogating contextual heterogeneity can be applied to other behavioral science interventions and broaden their impact in other policy domains. 

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