Assessing the Impact of Weekly Low-stakes Assessments on Student Motivation, Engagement, and Learning in Large-enrollment Remote Courses

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Tara Holland, Department of Geography

Project team: Bingqing Yu, research assistant

Timeframe: January 2021 to January 2022

Funding: $3,700

Courses addressed:

• GEOG 104 – Climate Change, Water, and Society
• EVSC 100 – Introduction to Environmental Science

Final report: View Tara Holland's final report (PDF)

Description: The purpose of the project is to determine the impact of asynchronous Class Engagement Activities (CEA) on student motivation, engagement, and learning in two large-enrolment first-year remote courses. Since the pivot to remote teaching in Spring 2020, I have been focused on redesigning my courses to maintain two critical aspects of student learning: motivation and engagement. According to course surveys (both informal mid-semester surveys and SETC), it seems that most students enjoy and value the CEAs to reflect on and apply course content, and to keep them on track with their work. However, some students also mention that doing weekly assignments on top of other course work is a burden, and that they feel that the effort vs grading weight ratio is skew. I want to undertake this research to formally investigate the data I have on student perceptions of the CEAs, and to link their perceptions and completion of these assignments to motivation, engagement and learning in my two courses over the last year.

Questions addressed:

• Do CEAs influence student motivation and learning?
• Does completion of CEAs correlate with performance in the course?
• Does grading weight influence student completion of the CEAs?
• Do CEA submissions reflect overall engagement in the course?

Knowledge sharing: I will write a summary of the project to disseminate to members of both my departments (Geography and Environmental Science), and possibly incorporate the preliminary results from this project into a workshop I plan to host on blended learning for members of the Faculty of Environment, as the Faculty Teaching Fellow. I’d also like to present the results at the 2022 Symposium on Teaching and Learning. In addition, I plan to prepare a manuscript based on this study.

Keywords: Remote teaching; online learning; engagement; motivation; active engagement; active learning; class engagement activities