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Let me learn' or 'just the answer'? Research consultations and Dweck's theories of intelligence
Full text linkPsychologist Carol Dweck identified the fixed and incremental theories of intelligence, which could affect how students navigate the research process, including if they will seek help from a librarian and what they intend to take away from that interaction. This study explores whether students who made research consultation appointments with a librarian subscribed to a particular theory of intelligence in order to provide evidence that can be used to inform and transform our practice
Standardizing Chaos: ETD Support service changes before and after a pandemic
Full text linkThe University of Pittsburgh has been requiring ETDs for just over 15 years, but our practices, standards, and templates had become outdated. In 2017 our reformed Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing was tasked with taking the reins of the ETD Support services offered by the library. These services included face-to-face walk-in hours, an ETD support email queue, the dissemination of a revised ETD informational website, instructional workshops, Word and LaTeX template maintenance, helpdesk services with student services support staff for each school, and the administration of the institutional repository for ETD submission and approval. Each aspect of these serviceshad developed breaking points that caused delays in responses, inconsistencies in deliverables, and frustrations for students, staff, and faculty. Our goal was to identify solutions that would be achievable and sustainable to realign the services and allow for future growth.In 2019 we had just completed our first phase of updates that allowed us to provide student-focused instructions on the ETD process, provide updated templates for Word and LaTex users, restructure our workshop materials and frequency, and to advise the approvers from each school on formatting standards and policies for preservation and creation of ETDs. The COVID-19 closures interrupted our Phase 2 planning, but forced us to quickly adapt to a new remote environment. We were able to quickly come together, with our ETD Process group, to obtain approval to use Zoom for workshops and online consultations, use our recently updated ETD Approval form to allow for digital signatures, and to utilize our new ETD site to provide up to date information on procedures, policies, and tutorials. My presentation will focus on how our team used various assessment methods to help inform our decisions and refocus the ETD Support services we provide. I will also cover simply solutions that are user centered and reduce wasted resources. As Repository Librarian and coordinator of ETD Support, I can speak directly about how and why we made our adjustments
Changing Social Norms to Foster the Benefits of Collaboration in Diverse Workgroups
Full text linkAlthough collaboration is essential for advancing science and maximizing human performance, collaboration in demographically diverse groups has often proven ineffective and sometimes harmful for negatively stereotyped group members. Here we report the results of a two randomized field experiments that sought to change social norms in an effort to realize the benefits of demographic diversity in collaborative workgroups. Separate experiments were conducted in undergraduate Biology (N=1215) and Physics (N=607) courses that were already employing small-group collaboration (3-4 students) during weekly study sections. At the beginning of the semester, study sections were assigned to receive either the intervention or business-as-usual control activities. The 30-minute intervention used narrative writing, peer testimonials, and small group discussion to establish a local norm that social and academic struggles are normal, anxiety about belonging is common, and most students eventually overcome these challenges. At the end of the semester, students who worked in diverse groups reported more positive social experiences in the intervention compared to control condition. Behaviorally, average attendance was higher in study sections that received the intervention, as was persistence in college after one year. Finally, students in each context theorized to be high in belonging uncertainty showed performance benefits, as the intervention closed the ethnic group performance gap in Biology classrooms and the gender performance gap in Physics classrooms. The results illustrate how social experiences in collaborative groups can be engineered to help realize the benefits of diversity