Academic Engagement, Cognitive Strategies, and Learning Outcomes: A Structural Equation Model
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Date
2017-07-21
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Abstract
The quality of university education has never been more important. Academics and university administrators have paid significant attention to create the conditions that assure the quality of higher education. Measuring learning outcomes viewed as a relatively new method to assess the value of college education. Previous research indicates that student’s background characteristics, engagement in educationally purposeful activities, and cognitive or learning strategies are related to their perceived learning outcomes. The present study uses Astin’s Input-Environment-Outcome (I-E-O) model as a theoretical framework to determine the influences of students’ background characteristics, academic engagement, and cognitive strategies on the self-reported learning outcomes of Texas A&M undergraduate students using the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey administered in 2015.
The results indicate that academic engagement and learning outcomes differed based on background characteristics. Overall, my findings support that certain student background characteristics influence the student engagement in educationally purposeful activities, which consequently affects their learning. Moreover, the structural equation models tested in this study showed the effect of academic engagement and cognitive strategies on learning outcomes. Overall, academic involvement and critical reasoning are the best predictors of critical thinking skills and communication and research skills. In terms of cultural appreciation, there was a significant direct effect only for academic initiative and critical reasoning. It is reasonable to conclude that academic engagement and cognitive strategies predicted critical thinking and communication outcome best.
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Learning outcomes, Cognitive strategies, Academic engagement, SERU, SEM