Homework has been shown to provide positive impacts on student performance at the undergraduate level. Providing an incentive for students to complete homework assignments, however, can be challenging and result in grade inflation or promotion of a mentality where students attempt to collect points rather than use these assignments for feedback…

The undergraduate college years are a critical time when students are beginning to think seriously about their career interests, and it is critical that students have a positive outlook for their mathematical learning if they are going to pursue math-related STEM majors. The current research with 748 undergraduate math students found that the more…

In most mathematics textbooks, each lesson is followed by a set of homework problems in one of two ways -- blocked practice and mixed practice. Additionally, most mathematics textbooks rely on a common learning strategy called overlearning, that is, mastering a skill and continuing to practice this same skill. This study investigated the effects…

Standards-based grading (SBG) is an assessment/grading system that attaches scores to the mastery level of specific learning objectives. This methodology is gaining momentum in the K-12 environment but has been largely overlooked at the post-secondary level. In this paper, I will discuss the implementation of this practice in a College Algebra…

Like many math educators, I have spent much of my career bound to traditional methods of instruction and assessment. In recent years, motivated by a growing understanding that such approaches may not result in equitable or inclusive classroom environments, my teaching philosophy has shifted radically. In this article, I describe how I transformed…

This article examines how educational scaffolding was used in a graduate research methods course to encourage student mastery of two qualitative research concepts, interviews and narrative inquiry. Findings suggest that scaffolding resulted in students' mastery of both concepts as well as students' increased attention to quality of interview…

Encouraged by positive clinical results at the University of Illinois, mastery-style homework was integrated into a large semester-long preparatory physics course via an online homework system that used narrated animated video solutions as correctives. This paper discusses the impact and evolution of the homework in its first two years. The first…

Homework in introductory physics represents an important part of a student's learning experience; therefore, choosing the manner in which homework is presented merits investigation. We performed three rounds of clinical trials comparing the effects of mastery-style homework vs. traditional-style homework with students in both algebra-based and…

This paper is part of a series of studies to improve the efficacy of online physics homework activities by integrating narrated animated solutions with mastery inspired exercises. In a clinical study using first- and second-year university students, the mastery group attempted question sets in four levels, with animated solutions between each…

This study explored patterns of the ethical conduct of collegiate students in academic and athletic domains employing social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986, 1997) using non-experimental, comparative and correlational designs. The study explored response patterns on anonymous surveys between varsity (N = 1151) and non-varsity (N = 227)…

This study sought to establish the relevance of college mothers' motivational orientation and other student-role attitudes to the parenting of their school-age children and to their children's attitudes toward school. College mothers (N = 89) with a child between the ages of 7 and 14 years completed measures of their academic achievement…