use of eportfolios after graduation
One of my responsibilities as a program assistant at the ePortfolio Project was to conduct research with professors and supervisors.
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My coworkers and I started a research project on use of ePortfolios after graduation. There are plenty of studies that outline the benefits of ePortfolios for learning and career development, or that gauge how students perceive ePortfolios. However, there are much fewer studies on how—if at all—students continue to use their ePortfolios after graduating. This was especially important to us at the ePortfolio project since we taught ePortfolios as outward-facing, professional documents that students could carry with them beyond graduation.
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This project first started based on an assessment initiative that had been carried out by our office. This initiative surveyed hundred of students who had ePortfolios. Among other questions, the survey asked students whether they had evidence that their ePortfolios helped them secure a job or be admitted to a graduate program. We carried out a pilot study that analyzed what excatly students considered "successful evidence" of ePortoflio use in a job or graduate school search. My coworkers and I
Photo: Heather Stuart
published and presented the results of the pilot study. We are currently working on the full research project, where we interviewed 10 alumni to more deeply understand how they used their ePortfolios in their careers. We have presented the preliminary results of this study at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U).
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For this research project, I've performed several roles, including transcribing interviews, performing qualitative analysis, drafting conference proposals, and writing reviews of the literature. I enjoyed all aspects of it, but doing qualitative analysis stands out because it of its collaborative nature: it's great to discuss, challenge, and ultimately refine ideas, and it's even best to look at the end results and see your and your coauthors' ideas, now transformed into something more than the sum of their parts. I was lucky to work with exceptional colleagues who made this exchange possible.
This is an ongoing project, so this section will be updated in the next few months. I can't wait to tell you more about it!
Master's thesis
The idea for my master's thesis came from my first college experience, in which I was a computer science major. During that time, I saw many of my colleagues learn new frameworks or programming languages from scratch, almost entirely self-directedly, and with no supervision from our professors. I remember hearing that his was part and parcel of working in IT: since the job was so closely linked to technology, and technology is always changing, it followed that computer science learners had to be highly self directed in order to stay relevant as professionals. At the time, this seemed like a truth so obvious it didn't even need saying—it was just common sense.
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My love for writing would later lead me to change my major to Journalism, but that experience has always stuck with me. Years later, while studying adult education, I became interested in the study of self-directed learning. I was immediately reminded of my time as a computer science major. Trying to connect the two disciplines, I was curious to know, empirically, whether computer science college students were more self-directed than other students. This question eventually evolved into my master's thesis.
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After receiving IRB approval, and with permission from Auburn's Department of Computer Science, I surveyed computer science undergraduate and graduate students. I used the Personal Responsibility Orientation to Self-Direction in Learning Scale (PRO-SDLS), a 25-item instrument designed to measure the degree of self-direction of college students. I found that Auburn computer science students scores were average, compared to scores reported by other studies. I was also interested to know if there were any differences in PRO-SDLS score means between different demographic groups (gender, age, ethnicity, and academic standing). To answer that question, I employed parametric (t-test, ANOVA) and non-parametric (Kruskal-Wallis) tests, but found no statistically significant results.
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Conducting my master's thesis research was challenging but immensely rewarding. The challenge I am most proud of overcoming was becoming proficient with SPSS and knowing how and when to use statistical tests. I was fortunate to have the assured direction of Dr. James Witte, my advisor, to guide me through that process. But, interestingly, the part of the finished product I am most proud of is the literature review. I took a deep dive into the fascinating scholarship of self-directed learning among adults. I had previously learned about key authors and ideas in that area during my classes, but during my thesis, I learned even more by studying the original works and reading the words of the authors themselves. The literature review also showed me how unexplored the topic of self-direction is among computer science learners, and I am proud to have made my own, small contribution to the field.
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The three images on the left are from my thesis and were created using SPSS. You can access my thesis at Auburn's database of theses and dissertations.
Professional development
During my time at Auburn, I was fortunate to work with one of my adult education professors, Dr. Leslie Cordie, on a number of research articles. These articles focus on various areas of research, but all of them involved professional development in one way or another.
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The first article Dr. Cordie and I did together was a case study about an assessment initiative that had been carried out by University Writing (the same initiative that originated the study on ePortfolio use after graduation). The initiative trained faculty to assess ePortfolios based on a rubric that had been developed by University Writing staff. Guided by University Writing staff, Dr. Cordie and I looked at comments from a post-session survey with the faculty to analyze how and what they had learned, and what could have been done for them to learn better. We used Jack Mezirow's (2003) theory of Transformative Learning as the framework for the analysis. This study has been published in the Journal of Transformative Learning.
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For our second article, we worked together with Dr. Anne Graham Cagney on a study about Fulbright scholars. The study analyzed interviews with faculty who had gone abroad on Fulbright scholarships. We wanted to understand the impact of international collaborations and social learning networks such as the ones developed on the careers of faculty; because of that, we used Wenger-Trayner's (2015) idea of communities of practice to shape our analysis. This study has been published in the Learning Communities Journal.
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In both these articles, I performed qualitative analysis, wrote parts of the articles (usually the introduction, findings or discussion sections), and edited and proofread the final drafts. These experiences taught me much about qualitative research. Even though the objects of study were different, the process of analyzing them was somewhat similar, which made the task of writing these articles seem less daunting to me. I really enjoyed the opportunity of learning more about the scholarship on faculty development and communities of practice, which I had previously heard about but was not familiar with. Of course, all of this was only possible with the invaluable guidance of Dr. Cordie, who has become one of my professional mentors. We have just began working on another article, so stay tuned for more!
Linguistics Poster
I have always loved languages, and as a child, I taught myself English in part out of sheer pleasure of learning it. However, my formal studies in linguistics only began because of an English as a Second Language teaching certificate offered by the Adult Education graduate program at Auburn. The certificate was comprised of adult education and linguistics courses, and it piqued my interest, so enrolled in my first ever linguistics course, called Applied Linguistics in Second Language Education.
On that course, we learned about specific areas in linguistics, such as phonology, syntax, and morphology, and their implications for language teaching. For one of our assignments, we were asked to design a and present a poster on the discourse analysis of a conversation between native and non-native English speakers. The topic of analysis could be anything related to what we had learned in class. I chose to do my poster on the differences in the use of filled pauses (such as 'uh' and 'like') between first and second-language English speakers. The posters were then presented in the Auburn Public Library, in an event open to the whole Auburn community.
The experience of designing and presenting a poster was very enlightening to me. At the time, I didn't have the research experiences I described in the paragraphs above. I got to learn more about linguistics from my professor and my peers who were also presenting that night. Overall, taking Applied Linguistics was very important to me, as it made me realize how much I love the field: so much, in fact, that I intend to transition from education and continue my graduate studies in linguistics.
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You can see my poster using the following link: Linguistics Poster
Photo: Nicoly Monteiro