Active, student-centered instruction has been endorsed nationally to improve student learning. It is thus not surprising to see an increasing interest in studying the factors that determine student persistence and graduation rate from colleges and universities. Research has shown that non-intellective factors such as academic self-efficacy and self-regulation are strongly correlated to student retention and success, serving as the factors in predicting scholastic performance. In science education, the constructivist theory of learning posits that students have to construct knowledge from their own experiences with necessary learning skills, which not all students possess, especially freshman students. In addition, student involvement, or what is increasingly being referred to as engagement, matters most during the critical first year of college. This project has designed and conducted a survey with undergraduate STEM majors from a regional university, exploring the correlations between student retention and success (GPA) with self-efficacy, self-regulation and classroom involvement, as well as the intercorrleaction among these factors. The data and findings from the pilot study provide some insights for our future revision and implementation of the chemistry curriculum.

STEM-SIRE: STEM student self-involvement, regulation and efficacy

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.