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Browsing by Author "DiGregorio, Gaye, committee member"

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    Investigating individually expressed motives and collectively generated goals for equity-oriented reform in undergraduate mathematics education
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Tremaine, Rachel, author; Hagman, Jess Ellis, advisor; Arnold, Elizabeth, committee member; Miranda, Rick, committee member; Basile, Vincent, committee member; DiGregorio, Gaye, committee member
    Supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an explicitly stated goal of many mathematics departments across the country, and addressing ongoing disparities in outcomes and experiences within undergraduate mathematics is a shared responsibility among undergraduate mathematics community members. Despite the prevalence of ideological, political, and contextual barriers to equity-oriented action within undergraduate mathematics spaces, many community members can and do take a responsive stance toward enhancing DEI within their department and at their institution. Understanding how mathematics faculty members, administrators, and students are personally motivated to take up work toward these aims within their own mathematics departments is paramount in ensuring that such work continues. In this dissertation I present two investigations which draw on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as a conceptual and theoretical lens. In the first investigation, I analyze the motives of 30 undergraduate mathematics community members (five administrators, 17 faculty members, and eight students) across three institutions to understand their reasoning for participation in an intradepartmental community focused on creating transformative, equity-oriented change within introductory mathematics courses. A reflexive thematic analysis of journal entries and individual interviews with participants resulted in five themes which motivated participation in collaborative equity reform within their mathematics department: a relational motive, a self-improvement motive, a student experience motive, an influence motive, and a values to action motive. With these themes in mind, I then consider how a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) at one institution developed a shared object for their work through a CHAT lens, highlighting what rules, communities, subjects, artifacts, and divisions of labor proved salient to this development. The prevalence and pervasiveness of self-interests, identity neutrality, and paternalism are critically discussed within the context of these investigations, and I build on existing literature to produce recommendations for disrupting such ideologies to produce transformative change in undergraduate mathematics environments. Among these recommendations are the need for critical engagement to see beyond self-interest in the context of one's own reform work, and the need for collaborative reform groups to not only position students as experts on their own experiences, but to also conceptualize instructors as novices on student experiences. I conclude with a discussion of future work supporting continued theorizing of the link between individually expressed motives and collectively generated goals in undergraduate mathematics reform efforts.
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    Skills to succeed: a questionnaire developed to measure self-advocacy skills before and after intervention in university students
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Mohar, Jayne Gonda, author; Schelly, Catherine, advisor; Davies, Patricia, advisor; DiGregorio, Gaye, committee member; Kuk, Linda, committee member
    Objective. Diversity of learners attending post-secondary education is increasing, but students from diverse backgrounds including racial/ethnic minorities, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities continue to graduate at lower rates than their peers. Non-academic skills are an important part of student success in postsecondary education, and self-advocacy is a piece of a non-academic skill set that can lead to greater student retention and increased graduation rates. The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure self-advocacy skills in university students and to determine the effectiveness of a self-advocacy intervention. Method: A quasi-experimental, mixed design study was used to determine the quality of a questionnaire to identify self-advocacy skills in college sophomores and the effectiveness of the questionnaire to measure the improvement of self-advocacy skills alter receiving a self-advocacy intervention. A diverse group of 36 students in a Learning Community at Colorado State University were given a questionnaire before the start of fall semester 2009. Students received a self-advocacy intervention to target areas of lower performance based on the pre-intervention questionnaire results and were given a follow-up survey at the end of fall semester. Results: Descriptive statistics indicated that half of the 30 Likert scale questions on the self-advocacy questionnaire did not have ceiling effects. Paired r-tests revealed a significant increase in one self-advocacy area and a decrease in two self-advocacy skill areas. When racial/ethnic groups, first-generation students, and students with disabilities were compared, differences were found in how Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic/Latino(a) students answered questions regarding self-advocacy skills. Qualitative data analysis further defined sophomore students’ perceived needs and definitions of self-advocacy. Conclusion: Literature supports that sophomore students often report a decrease in self-efficacy related to their academic experience as they measure their ability or chance for academic success. Students reported a need for increasing motivational and academic skills (test taking, studying) as the top areas for needing improvement. In addition to adding control groups, further refinement of the self-advocacy questionnaire and intervention is required in order to effectively measure and target the student identified self-advocacy needs.