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Madison Matters: Fostering Institutional Change

through Student Research on Campus Climate

By: Kristin Mack, Will Esswein,

Paul E. Mabrey III, and Matthew Lee

James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA)

Association of American Colleges & Universities

Diversity, Learning, and Student Success: Voices Leading Change

March 18, 2017 Jacksonville, FL

Overview:

u  What is Madison Matters

u  Small group needs assessment

u  Value of student engagement

u  Large group discussion

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What is Madison Matters?

u  A joint collaboration between the CARDS Lab in the Department of Psychology and the LGBTQ Faculty Listserv data collection team.

u  The project did an in-depth assessment of student perception of campus climate.

u  Hosts Madison Matters Day.

u  Interdepartmental collaboration with students, faculty, and staff.

u  Has partnered with CMSS and other offices for events to promote diversity and inclusion on the JMU campus.

Madison Matters Results

u  Facultywerethesourceof9.1%ofdiscrimina=onreportedbypar=cipants.

u  Withrespecttobiologicalsex,femalestudentsreportedsignificantlyhigherMHI-5scores(poorermentalhealth)thandidmalestudents.

u  Black/African-AmericanstudentsreportedsignificantlylowerfeelingsofbelongingatJMUcomparedtotheirwhiteandHispanic/La=nxpeers.

u  37.9%ofdiscrimina=onreportedbypar=cipantsoccuredinresidencehalls.

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What is student engagement? u  “JMU defines the three elements of engagement as”:

u  Engaged Learning

u  Civic Engagement

u  Community Engagement

Madison Matters as Student Engagement

u  Data collection

u  Data cleaning and analysis

u  Stakeholder meetings

u  D.E.E.P. Impact

u  Marketing & promotion

u  Video data reaction series

u  Training

u  Faculty skills training

u  Madison Matters Day

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Small Group Needs Assessment

Self-Study - Value of Student Engagement

u  Self-studies create trustworthiness by showing that the educator is invested in improving their practice.

u  Efforts made by the researcher can improve students’ learning (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000)

u  There is no right way to conduct a self-study

u  …so long as it is not being done purely to rationalize and justify preexisting practices, the goal is to build on knowledge of practice (Loughran, 2007)

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What is a self-study?

u  Self-studies are most often used in education as a way of evaluating and improving practice.

u  A self-study’s goal is partly to evaluate one’s own practices to make a more socially just learning environment (Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2015)

u  Another goal is to make the students being studied heard.

u  A good self study pays attention to the students in the context of their learning environment (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001)

u  Self-studies are interactive and use qualitative research strategies (LaBoskey, 2004).

Methodology: Interviews

u  Present and former CARDS Lab and Madison Matters members were contacted via email to participate.

u  We reached out to 11 members, heard back from, and interviewed eight.

u  Interviews were conducted either in person or via Skype and recorded with a dictation machine.

u  Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and checked by separate lab members to ensure accuracy.

u  There are no a priori research hypotheses.

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Methodology: Analysis

u  The goal is to understand how lab members “make sense of their experiences and what people’s actions mean” (Willig, 2012, p. 6).

u  We collected qualitative data and used Thematic Content Analysis (TCA) to find common threads across interviews.

u  We hoped to find that participants’ work on Madison Matters fostered connections to various groups and departments within the JMU community, and that it developed research skills relevant to students’ future and current academic and career goals.

Category: Subject 1

Subject 2

Subject 3

Subject 4

Subject 5

Subject6 Subject 7

Subject 8

Achievement 5 3 3 3 4 2 7 6

Communication/social media skills 3 2 2 3 3 3 4 4

Education and career goals 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 2

Engagement 9 10 10 4 6 8 8 2

Reasons for involvement 1 2 2 0 0 1 1 2

Relationships 6 5 3 3 3 4 4 3

Research skills 4 5 2 0 3 0 2 1

Roles 4 3 4 5 9 6 7 4

Social justice and activism 3 3 2 4 8 7 6 6

What Madison Matters means 7 7 5 4 3 6 6 5

Other 2 4 3 2 2 4 6 2

Results

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Results Names of Categories Codes in Category Responses in Category

Engagement 20 57

“(Regarding the video series interviews) It’s not really the issues we were talking about, especially race, which isn’t really something I go out and talk about on a regular basis, not unless it’s friends. Being able to do that with strangers on the platform of being part of the C.A.R.D.S. Lab and being part of the Madison Matters project really gave me more insight into how the campus is actually feeling about race, or women on campus, or the LGBT+ community, or mental health.”

Reasons for involvement 8 31

“I think I really wanted to have research experience that overlapped with social justice advocacy especially because at the time C.A.R.D.S. Lab was conducting a transphobia study.”

Relationships 7 17

“(Regarding Dr. Lee’s role as a mentor) I learned a lot and I think he taught me a lot of things about social justice and diversity, things I never would have learned about (otherwise), and things like developing my CV, talking to him about graduate school, his travels, and things like that. I think it has been really helpful in just figuring out what I want to do and putting me on that path.”

Results

Names of Categories Codes in Category Responses in Category

Research skills 9 42

“In talking about data to the public, I can explain statistics in a way that makes sense; I think I’m a lot more comfortable with this data and presenting it as well.”

Roles 8 39

“I was helping a lot with data collection, data cleaning, and checking once we got all of that stuff, a lot of data analysis, A LOT. A lot of ANOVA’s and descriptive statistics. I spent a lot of time coding things, coding qualitative data.”

Social justice and activism 15 43

“Madison Matters was kind of where I first made the connection between scientific research and social justice… I mean, I had… in our other experiments before that we conducted… with the transphobia study but this is kind of what brought it home for me and as someone who wants to continue research and continue staying in academia I think that’s something I’d always like to tie into my research and my academic life.”

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Results Names of Categories Codes in Category Responses in Category

Achievement 7 33

“I think because I’m passionate about Madison Matters and talking about what I do in the lab, that shapes (interactions with students) my sheer joy about it so I could really go on and on about it.”

Communication/social media skills 10 24

“The DEEP-Impact dialogue was a big accomplishment. Holding a small group dialogue was something that I have never done before that forced me out of my comfort zone and that was probably my biggest accomplishment. I would never guess I could do something like that, talking in front of tons of strangers.”

Education and career goals 4 12

“Definitely everything I’ve done, everything I’ve learned, and everything I’ve experienced is definitely going to follow me throughout my academic career and even towards my career because I’m staying in the field of diversity wherever I go. Even now, in applying to grad schools I find myself talking more about diversity than I am about Psychology, which I have to catch myself on, but that passion is there and being in the C.A.R.D.S. Lab has amplified it even more. I know being in this lab has cultivated that and that is going to drive me forward into my career.”

Results Names of Categories Codes in Category Responses in Category

What Madison Matters means 6 25

“To me that Madison Matters project is something that I really care about because it means getting everyone comfortable, safe, and confident at JMU. As a psychology major I am interested in helping people. I feel like the Madison Matters project is something that I have been able to make a direct contribution to. It means something to me that I am making a difference on campus and that I am helping this school I love improve.”

Other 2 9

“Now Madison Matters has grown – now means more to me after being part of three different research labs and seeing how impactful our research has been. People try to make things sound better than it is but our research with Madison Matters really has done a lot. When I talk with the other professors at work and no one else can really compare their work to this project. We’ve taken dissemination in a whole new way and we’re applying our research a lot more. A lot of people aren’t as motivated as Dr. Lee is. Dr. Lee is very motivated in what he does. So, I think that’s probably why it’s important to me, the project as a whole, because of how much energy he has put into it and how much has been created and developed.”

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Results Most frequent codes Number of hits

Dissemination 19

Community connection 10

Better understanding 9

Wanted research experience 9

Data analysis 9

Subject matter 9

Research impact 8

Identity integration 7

Practical application 7

Conclusions

u  Overall, working on Madison Matters was a positive experience.

u  Our study found that undergraduate research can be a valuable tool for students to learn about social justice and diversity while promoting engagement outside of the classroom.

u  We found that undergraduate research can also provide students with the opportunity to find a strong mentor in both students and faculty.

u  Undergraduate research can give students relevant experience which can reaffirm and influence their academic and career goals.

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Conclusions

u  The students in our lab each had responses matching the big six experiences that Gallup found increased preparedness for life after college.

u  We have a model for improving student engagement and social justice involvement through multicultural research and mentorship.

u  We also have a model for using self study to evaluate student learning outcomes.

References

u  Bullough, R.V. Jr., Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13-21.

u  Hamilton, M.L., Pinnegar, S. (2000). On the threshold of a new century: Trustworthiness, integrity, and self-study in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 234-240.

u  Loughran, J. (2007). Researching teacher education practices: Responding to the challenges, demands, and expectations of self-study. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(1), 12-20. doi: 10.1177/0022487106296217

u  Newmann, F. M. (1992). Student engagement and achievement in American secondary schools. Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, ISBN-0-8077-3183-8

u  NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement. (2017). Retrieved March 13, 2017, from http://nsse.indiana.edu/html/about.cfm)?

u  Vanassche, E., Kelchtermans, G. (2015). The state of the art in self-study of teacher education practices: A systematic literature review. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47(4), 508-528.

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