About this poster

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Panel information
Panel 3. Schooling and Education

Abstract

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The increasing cost of course materials and lack of sufficient emphasis on providing content grounded in inclusive pedagogy in traditional for-profit instructional products are barriers to student success. The aim of the present exploratory study was to examine the impact of utilizing an Open Access Educational Resource (OER) based inclusive pedagogical framework in transforming an introductory developmental psychology course on student performance and engagement. Approximately 66% of our students enrolled in the Introduction to Human Development course at our institution were eligible for Pell grants. We, as a team of three instructors with diverse personal histories and professional expertise, redesigned the course in a manner that recognized and utilized the diversity of our students to help them gain an appreciation of development through the lifespan by enabling our students to have equal access to a wide variety of contemporary resources regarding human development in an inclusive pedagogical framework across all sections and modalities of delivery.

Participants were 273 undergraduate students who were enrolled in PSYC 2103- Introduction to Human Development class at a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI) in the Southeast United States in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. Average age of participants completing the surveys was 23 (SD = 8), 89% of them identified themselves as female, and 71% identified themselves as Black or African American.

A 2X 2 Between Subjects ANOVA was conducted to examine the impacts of the inclusive pedagogical transformation and instructional modality (i.e., hybrid or fully online) on student performance. Overall, the inclusive pedagogical transformation had a significant impact on student performance such that students performed significantly better in the transformed version the course (Mean= 85.04, SD = 13.46) in comparison to the version that relied on more traditional instruction (Mean = 79.36, SD = 16.14) [F (1, 270) = 8.94, p =. 003]. There was no significant impact of the instructional modality on student performance [F (1, 270) = 1.17, p =.28]. There was an interaction between the transformation and instructional modality such that the transformation resulted in greater improvement in performance of those students taking the course in a fully online modality [ F(1, 270) = 7.14, p =. 008]. See Figure 1 for the impacts of the pedagogical transformation and instructional modality on student performance.

Based on the grades of D and F and withdrawals (i.e., DFW rates) for PSYC 2103, the transformation resulted in a statistically significant decline in the DFW rates for the course as well [ χ2 (1) = 4.85, p= .03]. Specifically, the DFW rate in Spring 2023 was 16% whereas DFW rate in Fall 2022 was 29%.

Currently, despite the availability of materials exploring human development from the perspective of African, First Nation, Asian, Hispanic and European cultures, most developmental psychology courses lack a grounding in inclusive pedagogy and cultural diversity considerations. In the U.S. there has been a consistent increase in the number of students taking online courses within the past twenty years. The adjustments made to student learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic turned online learning environments into a core component of the contemporary education landscape. Earlier in the pandemic, undergraduate students reported finances as among the top barriers to online learning. In our study we documented the significant impact that the OER based inclusive pedagogical transformation of the course we taught had on student success. This impact was particularly salient for those students who were taking the course in a fully online modality. Overall our findings contribute to the literature on significance of having anti-racist learning environments to promote success of all our students.

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