Student Self-Perceptions and Cognitive Abilities

Do students’ self-perceptions influence their cognitive abilities, and how do we know? In this quasi-experimental study, we examine possible answers to this question. Some of the concepts relate to early work by Bandura and models that followed on how self-efficacy influences learning performance.


In the session's discussion about self-perceptions, many expressed a belief that self-perceptions influence learning, but only one had gathered statistics to confirm the belief. Several assumed that low self-perception would produce low performance, but after our session, reported that their thinking had now shifted; indeed, in some contexts low self-perception may lead to less persistence, but in others such as the one we provided, it may lead to greater persistence. We also had a poster session on this same research, and discussion was fairly nonstop during this time.

We looked at self-confidence before and after instruction as one component of self-perception. A confidence survey was created for each module of a course in which students rated their confidence in performing discrete tasks and objectives.

In 2007 and 2008, pre-instruction confidence ratings were persistently low for all units and tasks in the course while post-instruction confidence ratings were persistently high. Use of the confidence rating system seems to improve learning as measured by grades, when compared to deliveries of the same course that did not use such a system (2006).

In 2007 and 2008 in courses that used the confidence rating system, students reported that the confidence rating process was of high value, and this seems to be associated with all grades given in the course. We think that these ratings suggest higher student engagement with the learning tasks.

In 2008, a pretest was added as a measure of pre-knowledge, and scores were persistently low (no score above 8). In this course (multiple sections), the pretest combined with the confidence rating system seems to have produced dramatic improvements in grades.

Anecdotally, students reported to the instructor that they were informed of what to study in the confidence surveys, that some would copy the surveys and expand them to use them as study guides. The combination of the pretest with the confidence rating provided them with greater clarity about expectations.

The next stage of work for this study will be systematic statistical analysis of the data. We invited advice from anyone in the group who could recommend statistical analyses that would fit with our context. One person took detailed notes about our project and will be sending us follow up recommendations about how to proceed with more rigorous statistical analysis.

Presenters: Don Slater, Georgia Southern University & Ludwika Goodson, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Community, Voices, and Portals of Engagement

Our luncheon keynote speaker probably was thinking globally, while a biochemist Margie Paz, originally from the Phillipines, and now at Griffin, Georgia, talked with me, and we discovered that we both had attended Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. And, we shared some stories about Ames, Des Moines, Griffin, and the Phillipines.

Our conversation was good prep for Dr. T’s fresh perspective on Yo Yo Ma’s “Silk Road Ensemble” and the dimensions of learning in that project. I was struck by the concept that a body of knowledge is unknowingly privileged by particular voices. Dr. T. showed us how threads of perception of the same event in historical images provide different knowledge about that event, and how students can be engaged in discovering, in a digital community, these different types of knowledge. She showed us the project “Perry Visits Japan.”

Dr. T focused on the hybrid of cognitive and sensory frameworks to transform comprehensive and critical analysis, and how these come to define “signature” pedagogies, such as “grand rounds” in medical teaching.

As I write these notes a day later, two teachers across the hallway are discussing spiritual understanding and personality in the teaching process. This is not unlike the concept that Dr. T. mentioned of designing “open-room for debate and interpretations” into the assignments that we create for students. She reflected on the challenge for many teachers of planning inquiry with open-ended studies and absence of conclusions into a study process.

In this context, layering communities and voices into portals of engagement led to the creation of “research teams” whose members came from different countries, who were provided with real data about a pervasive real-world health problem, and were invited to decide what to do with the data. This approach was much less prescriptive than many learning assignments. The teams had to
decide what was important to them in their personal lives, what they care about most, and then could proceed with deciding what to do about the data.

Dr. T. described the distance learning design-studio concept. She added questions about what to visualize from what perspective? What to scaffold? How to develop productive habits of mind? Reflection on McLuhan’s (1961) The Gutenberg Galaxy notion of extending our senses outside of us with the social world, and how this is like what happens when a new note is added to a melody. And what biases do we bring to the curriculum?

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Kathy Takayama