Updated version of presentation delivered at HEA Social Sciences annual conference 2014. These slides form part of a blog post, which can be accessed via: http://bit.ly/UQUEbJ

1. 1
When Student Confidence Clicks
Academic Self-Efficacy
and Learning in HE
Fabio R. Aricò
Chris Thomson
HEA Social Sciences Conference
21-22 May 2014

2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UEA-HEFCE Widening Participation Teaching Fellowship
HEA – Teaching Development Grant Scheme
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3. PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS
Project Resources: https://sites.google.com/site/fabioarico/hea_tdg
Project Workshop: Wednesday 3 Sep 2014 - University of East Anglia
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4. ETHICAL REMARK
You will be presented with data collected during teaching sessions.
Students involved have given informed consent for me to analyse
their responses and present the results of this analysis.
I can assist with ethical queries as well, please ask me.
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5. OUTLINE
1. The role of Academic Self-Efficacy in Learning
2. Using SRS to increase Academic Self-Efficacy
Other methods to increase Academic Self-Efficacy
3. A few preliminary results of our analysis on
student responses
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6. 6

7. 1. The role of Academic
Self-Efficacy in Learning
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8. MOTIVATION
Are my answers
correct? I’m so
confused…
Is this going to
be in the exam?
Are you sure?
But what if money
supply contracts
rather than
increasing?
Yes, we checked
them together
already.
Yes, we spoke
about it in class
and practiced.
You know how to do
the reverse, you
showed me. Relax.
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9. MOTIVATION
Typical problems analysed in recent pedagogic literature:
• Students may encounter difficulties with the course material
 support sessions, office hours, targeted support interventions.
• Students may display low levels of engagement
 revision of the curriculum, innovations in teaching,
teaching technologies, partnership lecturer-students.
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10. MOTIVATION
Additional problem:
• Students may experience low confidence levels
 anxiety over preparation;
 peer-pressure and competition;
 inability to self-assess and detect problems.
• The recent changes in HE practice exacerbate this problem
 the ‘student experience’ model targets support and satisfaction;
 students run the risk of being put ‘at the heart of the system’ as
passive receivers, rather than confident owners, of their learning.
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11. REACTION
Re-visit the concept of Academic Self-Efficacy:
students’ confidence in their ability to accomplish specific
academic tasks or attain specific academic goals
(Bandura, 1997).
Teach students how to become confident and independent learners
 help them to self-assess and diagnose problems;
 enable them to seek appropriate forms of support;
 increase the rate of retention of widening access students;
 enhance employability skills all along the academic journey.
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12. REACTION in practice
Develop a teaching protocol embedding Academic Self-Efficacy
as an independent learning outcome, parallel to the curriculum.
Stage 1: Investigation and assessment of student Self-Efficacy
- experiment with Student Response Systems (clickers);
- explore correlation between attainment and confidence.
Stage 2: Extension of dataset (add student record data)
Extension to qualitative analysis (e.g. focus groups and interview)
Targeted intervention to increase Self-Efficacy levels.
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13. YOUR EXPERIENCE
• What is your opinion about the relevance of Academic Self-
Efficacy in learning and teaching?
• Have you experienced issues in your teaching that can be
related to lack of students’ confidence in their own abilities?
• Did you try to address this problem with the students?
How? Can you share your experience?
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14. 2. Using SRS to increase
Academic Self-Efficacy
Other methods to increase
Academic Self-Efficacy
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15. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the module
Introductory
Macroeconomics  Level 1 – compulsory year-long module - 170 students
Lectures  traditional frontal-teaching (10 per sem.)
Seminars  small group, pre-assigned problem sets (4 per sem.)
Workshops  large group, problem-solving sessions (4 per sem.)
Support Sessions  non-compulsory drop-in sessions (4 per sem.)
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16. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations
Lectures  interaction via clicker technology
Seminars  revision questions + understanding questions
Workshops  closing questions:
was the lecture enjoyable?
was the material difficult?
Support Sessions  online report of clicking session + feedback
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17. 17
Lecture difficulty indicator -
66% (+8%).
Please look out for additional
resources coming online very
shortly. Video tutorials about
the IS-LM will be available
shortly.
I would like you to reflect on
the feedback asked on the IS-
LM model and try to identify
what are your OWN
difficulties. If many of you are
confident about
understanding and mastering
the material, we need to make
this belief becoming a reality.
For those of you who are not
confident. Why is this the
case? Come and discuss this
with me.

18. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations
Seminars  preliminary Seminar Quizzes (paper-based)
Seminars  3-4 revision/understanding questions
Workshops  2 confidence/self-assessment questions
Sessions  open-answer comments
Support Sessions  online report of Seminar Quiz
- solutions and overall performance
- individual performance available
- response to open-answer comments
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19. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations
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20. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations
Extra-Curricular  Activities to promote engagement and Self-Efficacy
Seminars  Module Facebook Page + Blackboard pages
- ‘challenges’ to encourage further study
- interaction and participation
Seminars  Voluntary in-lecture presentations (5 minutes)
- to exploit demonstration effects
Support Sessions  Campus Vouchers (for engagement, not attainment)
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21. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the innovations
Workshops  peer-instructed flipped classroom approach
Seminars  standard algorithm:
1. Quiz questions + Confidence questions (no solution)
2. Peer-instruction learning
3. Quiz questions + solutions
4. Problem-set questions
4. Feedback questions:
- what was the cause of mistakes/problems?
- did you enjoy using clickers?
- were clickers useful to your learning?
Support Sessions  online report of clicking session + feedback
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22. TEACHING PROTOCOL – the methodology
Targets  attainment, engagement, academic self-efficacy
role of the SRS (clicker) technology
Learning analytics  rich dataset = clicker and paper-based responses
Seminars  matched demographics from student records
 uncover correlation patterns
Qualitative data  focus group and individual interviews
Sessions  feedback from students
Support Sessions  provide the narrative to interpret the analytics
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23. 3. A few
preliminary
results of
our analysis
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24. DATASETS
Student Q1 Q2 Q3 … 
1 0 1 1
2 1 0 0
3 1 1 …
…
 performance per question
confidence by question
performanceperstudent
confidencebystudent
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longitudinal study
- across all lectures
- across all seminars
- across all workshops
Intermediate and final
attainment outcomes
- course test
- final exam

25. SEMINAR SESSIONS
What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?
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26. SEMINAR SESSIONS
What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?
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27. WORKSHOP SESSIONS
What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?
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28. WORKSHOP SESSIONS
What is the relationship between attainment and confidence?
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29. PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• In Seminar Quizzes:
 high-attainment students display higher confidence
 low-attainment students not able to self-assess their performance.
• In Workshop sessions:
 high-attainment students display higher confidence
 low-attainment display lower confidence.
• How to interpret this asymmetry?
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30. PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• In Seminar Quizzes:
 3 or 4 questions, paper-based quiz, 5-6 minutes, not anonymous
 1 confidence assessment for overall performance.
• In Workshop sessions:
 5-10 questions, clicker response, slower pace, quasi-anonymous
 1 confidence assessment for each question asked.
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31. PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• Low-attainment students encounter more difficulties in
self-assessing their performance in an environment where:
 they self-assess their ‘overall’ performance on a composite task
 they are exposed to questions for a shorter period of time
 they are exposed to fewer questions, not anonymously.
• Focus group interviews (differentiated by attainment groups)
confirm that low-attainment students display lower
self-assessment skills  important finding for intervention!
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32. SUMMARY
• Teaching protocol with interventions to assess/enhance
Academic Self-Efficacy and self-assessment skills.
• Mixed-methods approach to disentangle the relationship
between engagement, attainment, and academic self-efficacy
using student demographics.
• Preliminary results uncover interesting patterns of association
between attainment and confidence levels.
 It depends on learning environment and method of assessment.
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33. PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS
Project Resources: https://sites.google.com/site/fabioarico/hea_tdg
Project Workshop: Wednesday 3 Sep 2014 - University of East Anglia
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