Cooper Katelyn M, Krieg Anna, Brownell Sara E
Biology Education Research Laboratory, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University , Tempe, Arizona.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2018 Jun 1;42(2):200-208. doi: 10.1152/advan.00085.2017.
Academic self-concept is one's perception of his or her ability in an academic domain and is formed by comparing oneself to other students. As college biology classrooms transition from lecturing to active learning, students interact more with each other and are likely comparing themselves more to other students in the class. Student characteristics can impact students' academic self-concept; however, this has been unexplored in the context of undergraduate biology. In this study, we explored whether student characteristics can affect academic self-concept in the context of an active learning college physiology course. Using a survey, students self-reported how smart they perceived themselves to be in the context of physiology relative to the whole class and relative to their groupmate, the student with whom they worked most closely in class. Using linear regression, we found that men and native English speakers had significantly higher academic self-concept relative to the whole class compared with women and nonnative English speakers. Using logistic regression, we found that men had significantly higher academic self-concept relative to their groupmate compared with women. Using constant comparison methods, we identified nine factors that students reported influenced how they determined whether they were more or less smart than their groupmate. Finally, we found that students were more likely to report participating more than their groupmate if they had a higher academic self-concept. These findings suggest that student characteristics can influence students' academic self-concept, which in turn may influence their participation in small-group discussion and their academic achievement in active learning classes.
学业自我概念是一个人对自己在某一学术领域能力的认知，它是通过将自己与其他学生进行比较而形成的。随着大学生物学课堂从讲授式教学向主动学习转变，学生之间的互动增多，他们可能会更多地将自己与班上的其他学生进行比较。学生的特征会影响他们的学业自我概念；然而，在本科生物学背景下，这一点尚未得到探讨。在本研究中，我们探讨了在主动学习的大学生理学课程背景下，学生特征是否会影响学业自我概念。通过一项调查，学生自我报告了在生理学方面，相对于全班同学以及相对于他们在课堂上合作最密切的同学（即他们的小组成员），他们认为自己有多聪明。使用线性回归分析，我们发现，相对于全班同学而言，男性和以英语为母语的学生的学业自我概念显著高于女性和非英语母语的学生。使用逻辑回归分析，我们发现，相对于他们的小组成员而言，男性的学业自我概念显著高于女性。使用持续比较法，我们确定了九个因素，学生报告这些因素会影响他们判断自己比小组成员更聪明还是更不聪明。最后，我们发现，如果学生有更高的学业自我概念，他们更有可能报告自己比小组成员参与度更高。这些发现表明，学生特征会影响学生的学业自我概念，而这反过来可能会影响他们参与小组讨论的程度以及在主动学习课堂上的学业成绩。
