Collaborative Research: Understanding the Role of Writing in Promoting Learning and Engagement for Diverse Undergraduate Thesis Writers

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Previous research demonstrated that students who participate in structured thesis writing courses developed stronger writing and critical thinking skills than students who simply worked one-on-one with faculty mentors. It is also well established that writing can be one of the most effective strategies for promoting critical thinking and scientific reasoning, but how writing affects learning is largely unproven. Since higher-order thinking involves restructuring knowledge, the writing activities that evoke this process of knowledge transformation - as well as the mechanisms of effect - still need to be determined. There is substantial evidence that motivation (level of engagement with the task), and self-efficacy (beliefs regarding one's ability to learn) increase learning. Additional processes that are likely to influence learning are epistemology beliefs (beliefs about the nature of knowledge and its justification) and metacognition skills (the ability of students to monitor their thinking and learning strategies). This project is based on the hypothesis that writing affects learning through these four processes. If this is correct, then teaching practices that address all of these mechanisms directly are most likely to optimize learning. The goal of this research project is to understand whether writing an undergraduate thesis improves critical thinking and writing skills through impacting metacognition, motivation, and beliefs, and whether these effects differ as a function of student characteristics and departmental context. This study will address these effects in two dimensions: (1) across four disciplines (biology, chemistry, economics, and neuroscience) within one university and (2) across four universities within biology departments and colleges. All collaborators teach thesis writing courses, represent a range of institutional contexts, pedagogical approaches, and have diverse student populations. A Faculty Learning Community will be used to facilitate sharing of educational practices, assessment methods, and findings. Nationally recognized teaching experts will guide participants in using assessment results to create effective teaching interventions. This research will employ pre-/post-intervention experiments and will be conducted concurrently at four universities using a common protocol and study design. The experiments involve different structures and practices at each institution and department around the common task of a capstone thesis and employ a baseline (year 1) and two modification years (Years 2 and 3). Year 1 is baseline with no intervention. In years 2 and 3, instructional practices will be shaped by assessment results and by sharing approaches through the faculty learning community.Intellectual Merit: Even though these mechanisms interact and operate concurrently, most prior research has examined each mechanism singly. Including all four processes in this model will enable a better understanding of their independent and combined contributions to improvements in critical thinking and scientific reasoning brought about through writing an undergraduate thesis. Broader impacts: This project will promote teaching and learning practices and the integration of teaching and research in several ways. The work intentionally and explicitly addresses the diversity of students and institutions by studying thesis writers across disciplines and universities representing diverse student populations. Furthermore, it will provide proof of concepts essential to the wider adoption of evidenced-based teaching practices: that students' beliefs, thinking and learning strategies, and motivation are processes that affect learning and can be effectively transformed through writing practices targeted to improve critical thinking and scientific reasoning.