Browsing by Author "Lusk, Danielle Leigh"

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    Defining, Exploring, and Measuring Metacognitive Social Justice
    Van Montfrans, Veronica Lynn (Virginia Tech, 2017-12-12)
    This dissertation explores the concept and development of metacognitive social justice through three manuscripts. The first manuscript defines metacognitive social justice through an extensive literature review from prominent social justice scholars and theorists to find common themes that either explicitly or subtly permeate social justice content. Drawing from theory and empirical data, the first manuscript provides a foundation of this cognitive process that is relatable to all social justice scholarship, defining cognitive common ground. The themes found across the literature can be distilled to four metacognitive attributes found in "social justice thinking": (1) self-awareness through consciousness-raising, (2) value in the narratives of others, (3) awareness of unseen forces, and (4) questioning historical origins or intents. The second manuscript is a qualitative analysis of the perception of self- proclaimed social justice thinkers, exploring how they define 'social justice thinking' and the role it plays in their daily choices and decision-making. Through thoroughly coded and analyzed transcripts of one-on-one, semi-structured interviews, this manuscript explores three other emergent themes of action, discomfort and community, as a well as the need for developing social justice thinkers, and highlights significant connections to the attributes in the first manuscript. The third manuscript is a detailed description of the development of the metacognitive social justice survey for college undergraduates, a psychometric instrument designed to measure the metacognitive social justice attributes in individuals described in the theoretical manuscript. The instrument was found to be increasing in quantitative validity through two exploratory factor analyzes (EFA) with still room for improvement. Drawing on the questions developed so far, a final version of this psychometric instrument will provide a snapshot of what metacognitive social justice attributes are found in undergraduate classes and potentially to what extent. This is the first edition of the instrument, with the idea that the instrument should be ever evolving, becoming more accurate and valid, and carefully reworded for different audiences beyond college undergraduates.
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    The Effects of Seductive Details and Segmentation on Interest, Recall and Transfer in a Multimedia Learning Environment
    Lusk, Danielle Leigh (Virginia Tech, 2008-03-19)
    Multimedia learning theory, and the research that has supported it, is largely focused on the cognitive elements of learning. Although motivation has been mentioned as a factor in learning in a multimedia environment, motivation has not been measured as a distinctive variable in most studies. Specific attributes of multimedia, including seductive details and segmentation, have been hypothesized to increase interest; however, only studies examining these attributes— effects on learning (measured by recall and transfer) have been conducted. The present study aimed to extend the examination of the use of seductive details and segmentation in multimedia learning by measuring interest in addition to recall and transfer. The participants were 167 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to four treatment groups involving a tutorial on the formation of lightning, which differed according to the multimedia attributes featured in the tutorial. Treatment groups included seductive details and segmentation (SD+S), seductive details and no segmentation (SD+NS), no seductive details and segmentation (NSD+S), and no seductive details and no segmentation (NSD+NS). Participants took an interest questionnaire before engaging with the tutorial and immediately following the tutorial. Tests of recall and transfer were used to measure learning after the tutorial. Two trained raters evaluated responses. Data from the study were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and correlation procedures. The results of the study revealed no significant differences among treatment groups in regards to interest, recall, or transfer. There was no significant relationship between interest and recall or interest and transfer. Although the results did not provide support for existing literature on seductive details and segmentation effects or reveal that these attributes increase interest, the implications of the findings present several valuable areas for future research.
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    An Intervention to Increase Students' Engagement and Achievement in College English Classes in China using the MUSIC Model of Motivation
    Li, Ming (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-01)
    Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is regarded as an effective approach to teaching foreign languages because it focuses on students' engagement and communicative competence. In the realm of educational psychology, researchers have identified many teaching strategies that can have positive effects on students' motivation and engagement. Jones (2009, 2015) synthesized these strategies and created the MUSIC® Model of Motivation. MUSIC is an acronym for the strategies related to eMpowerment, Usefulness, Success, Interest and Caring. The MUSIC model can be used to help instructors to redesign their instruction to motivate and engage their students in learning activities. The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of incorporating the MUSIC model strategies into CLT classes at a university in China. I used a self-report survey comprised of seven subscales (representing five motivation-related variables and two engagement variables) to collect data on students' course perceptions and their engagement in a college English class. The participants were first year college students at a university in central China (n = 259). Independent samples t-tests, regression, and correlation were used to answer the following two research questions: 1. Is there a difference in students' motivation and achievement in traditional lecture classes versus CLT classes that incorporate MUSIC model strategies? 2. To what extent do students' MUSIC model perceptions relate to their engagement and achievement? The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the traditional lecture class and the CLT classes incorporating MUSIC model strategies. Students in CLT classes perceived more control in the class, found the course to be more useful, were more interested, and perceived more caring from their teacher. As a result, students in CLT classes put forth more effort and achieved higher scores on a standardized English test. In addition, the results revealed that students' MUSIC model perceptions predicted their engagement both in CLT classes and the traditional classes. However, the results showed that the MUSIC model components did not significantly predict student achievement. These findings suggest that the MUSIC model and the MUSIC Inventory are ideal tools for Chinese college English teachers to use when they design instruction.