Many engineering programs have a common content based first-year curriculum that all engineering students are required to take.  These courses tend to be large in size, having multiple sections requiring the use of Teaching Assistants (TAs) who may be graduate students (GTAs) or undergraduate students (UTAs).  The roles of TAs in first-year engineering courses vary from instructional staff to lab supervisors to graders, but despite their widespread use, little is known about the TAs' experiences.  This study fills a gap in the literature by taking a participant centered approach to GTA motivation to teach and identity development as a teacher specifically in the context of first-year engineering programs (FYEPs). To guide this research, a combined motivation and identity framework was developed based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Possible Selves Theory (PST).  In the framework, PST serves as the foundation for the SDT constructs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy.  The framework supports that the various constructs lead to increased motivation and identity development but that each experience through the process is based on one's own identity and views of themself in the future.  This was studied through an exploratory sequential mixed methods design where 12 semi-structured interviews representing five different FYEPs served as the foundation for the development of a national survey completed by 33 GTAs representing seven different FYEPs.  Priority was ultimately given to the qualitative strand, but mixing occurred throughout the study. The results indicate that there are seven factors that affect GTA motivation and identity and there are profiles, lenses, and filters can be used to understand GTAs' experiences in FYEPs.  While each individual is unique, general trends among experiences were observed.  Additionally based on the results, the framework was found to be an appropriate tool but that a slight modification was needed to better align the framework with GTA developmental trends.  This research allows future research-based GTA training programs and appointments to be developed that specifically aim towards meeting the motivational and identity developmental needs of GTAs, ultimately improving the quality of higher education. / Ph. D.

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This research investigates the impact of collaborative work between an Educational Psychologist (EP) and teaching assistants (TAs) delivering a wave 3 National Numeracy Strategy (NNS) intervention. The aim was to decipher whether EPs can play a distinctive role in addressing the stubborn and significant tail of underachievement in numeracy and, indirectly, the associated risks to an individual’s life opportunities, health, employability and social cohesion by providing consultative support for TAs. A multiple case study approach was adopted involving three case studies, each comprising one TA and three underachieving children, at different schools in the North of England. The EP modelled the use of the wave 3 NNS materials and supported/trained TAs in delivering this and other jointly agreed input over one academic term. Initial consultations were held with TAs to explore their experiences of mathematics and delivering numeracy interventions. Thereafter, joint planning and discussions took place on a fortnightly basis to identify what was working well and what input from an EP may be of use; EP input was provided as and when appropriate. Outcomes from the research were assessed using a standardized numeracy test, attitude questionnaires completed by TAs and children, interviews with TAs before and after the intervention and a research diary. The quantitative data gathered through the numeracy test and attitude questionnaires were compared pre and post intervention using descriptive statistics. The qualitative data from interviews and the research diary was analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The results indicate that consultative support from EPs is welcome by TAs and schools and can be associated with positive outcomes for the children involved. TAs felt EP support was reassuring and acknowledged that it increased their knowledge and confidence and this directly affected the way they thought, felt and behaved in relation to the children’s numeracy difficulties. TAs reported positive observable changes in the children’s attitudes to numeracy lessons and there was a positive correlation between children’s scores on the numeracy test and the final attitude scores allocated to them by TAs, indicating that the intervention had a substantial impact on children’s attitudes and attainment in numeracy. TAs, parents and teachers attributed the positive changes seen in children to participation in the intervention and children’s progress was clearly linked to the numeracy topics covered by the NNS materials. A model for EP-TA collaboration with NNS interventions is proposed and significant factors include: consultation; modelling resources; conducting diagnostic assessments; shaping TAs’ pedagogical practice and providing training on instructional psychology methods. The research indicates that there is a potential distinctive role for EPs in raising the numeracy attainment and attitudes of children working with TAs on NNS interventions. The key element is successive EP consultations that target specific numeracy needs, effectively consider contextual factors and provide ongoing support for TAs. The proposed model could be applied to other numeracy interventions and provides an economical alternative to expensive SEN provision that EPs could usefully contribute to. Further research will be needed to ascertain more precisely the value added by the factors identified in this study to be associated with positive outcomes for children.

The purpose of this study was to identify in which areas of teaching assistant responsibilities graduate teaching assistants, professors, and students viewed TAs as knowledgeable, and in which areas of teaching assistant responsibilities graduate teaching assistants, professors, and students viewed TAs as utilized. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to determine whether teaching assistants were utilized or perceived as knowledgeable in curriculum development, course maintenance, teaching responsibilities, and mentoring. Teaching assistants, students, and instructors (n = 233) were administered a survey purposed to measure TAs' effectiveness based on their utility and knowledge in four areas of TA responsibilities: curriculum development, course maintenance, teaching responsibilities, and mentoring. All three participant groups perceived that TAs were utilized in course maintenance and mentoring, and they perceived the TAs were knowledgeable in course maintenance, teaching responsibilities, and mentoring. Overall, instructors viewed TAs as more knowledgeable than did the TA participant group, and the TA participant group viewed themselves as more knowledgeable than did the student participant group.

Within the field of mathematics teacher education, mathematics graduate students have recently become subjects of investigation. While research in this area tends to focus on future schoolteachers, little has been done to examine prospective university teachers of mathematics and their understanding of its teaching and learning. As a result, the experiences of mathematics graduate students and the development of their teaching practices are not well understood. Almost seventy-five percent of mathematics PhDs will become professors at post-secondary institutions dedicated to undergraduate education. Since much of their careers will be spent in the classroom, attending to the manner in which mathematics graduate students develop their teaching practices is important in understanding how they are shaped for their future profession. The purpose of this research project was to uncover issues and difficulties that arise as mathematics graduate students develop their views of their possible future roles as university teachers of mathematics. Over a six-month period, conversations were held with six mathematics graduate students exploring their experiences of and perspectives on mathematics teaching. Using hermeneutic inquiry and thematic analysis, the conversations were analysed and interpreted with attention to themes and experiences that had the potential to influence the graduate students ideas about and approaches to the task of teaching. This dissertation also attends to notions of identity for mathematics graduate students, in particular their emerging identities as mathematicians and what being a mathematician in the world means to them, as well as their identities as future post-secondary teachers of mathematics. The structures and expectations of behaviour within their department of mathematics had implications for how the participants formed their identities as mathematicians and mathematics teachers. Lave and Wengers notion of legitimate peripheral participation is explored with regard to the meta-themes that came through the analysis. These meta-themes are: replication where university mathematics teacher identity and classroom practices became a process of replication; resignation the research participants felt resigned to one particular way of being in mathematics and of mathematics teaching; and despondence the participants were beginning to lose their excitement about becoming post-secondary teachers of mathematics.

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Novice programmers often find learning programming difficult. They suffer from various misconceptions and difficulties in understanding the subject. The overall experience with programming can be negative for many students. They may feel isolated in the programming environment and think that programming is difficult for them. Many schools use automated grading tools to process student work and provide them with early feedback. Web-CAT, an open-source software system that is widely used by many universities, is an example of such an automated grading tool. We have developed a Virtual Teaching Assistant for Web-CAT, called Maria, who can support the students to help alleviate some of the negative emotions towards programming. We have used an animated pedagogical agent as the virtual assistant as certain characteristics of the agent can help with the students' perception about the virtual teaching assistant. Often, students have a fixed mindset about programming. But it is easy to master programming with practice. To promote a growth mindset, Maria also provides feedback recognizing the effort of the student in addition to the performance-oriented feedback of the students' programs. Maria can also provide motivating or encouraging comments to continue working on the assignment to get a good score. Maria can also provide information about the various errors displayed in student feedback. / Master of Science / Beginners often find learning computer programming difficult. They may suffer from various misconceptions and difficulties in understanding the subject. Also, there can be a negative experience surrounding programming for many students. They may feel isolated in the programming environment and think that programming is difficult for them. Many schools use automated software tools to grade student programs and provide them with early feedback. Web-CAT, a software system that is widely used by many universities, is an example of such an automated grading tool. We have developed a Virtual Teaching Assistant to reside within Web-CAT, called Maria, who can support the students to help alleviate some of the negative emotions towards programming. We have used an animated human-like character, known as pedagogical agent, for Maria as it is widely use in pedagogy to help students. Often, students think programming is an innate skill and it is difficult to acquire. But it is easy to master programming with practice. To encourage students to continue working, Maria also provides feedback recognizing the effort that the student has put in towards completing the programming assignment or project. In certain cases, Maria can also provide motivating or encouraging comments to the students to help them continue working on the assignment. Maria can also provide explanation about the various programming errors that students encounter during their submission to Web-CAT.

Many colleges face a lack of academic and emotional support for their computer science students. Previous research into this problem produced Maria, a virtual teaching assistant (TA). This initial version of Maria was able to answer student questions, provide error explanations, and praise students for effort on programming assignments. This research continues work on the Maria project with three design goals: (1) reducing obstacles to use of Maria, (2) allowing Maria to provide better academic support, and (3) allowing Maria to provide better emotional support (with less focus on this goal). Improvements were made to the initial version of Maria, including increasing the number of questions that Maria could answer, allowing Maria to suggest questions for students to ask, and adding longer back-and-forth dialogs between Maria and students. Following this, Maria was deployed to students for an evaluation. The evaluation revealed that certain features were popular (including the longer dialogs and easier access to error explanation) and that Maria was unable to provide relevant answers to many questions asked by students. Using data from the evaluation, more improvements were made to Maria to address some of her shortcomings and build on her popular features. Answers to more questions were added for questions about testing, general knowledge questions, questions about many other topics. Many of these new answers used the popular back-and-forth dialog feature. Additionally, this research discusses a system that could be used to automate the creation of new answers for Maria or any virtual teaching assistant using crowdsourcing. / Master of Science / Many colleges face a lack of academic and emotional support for their computer science students. Previous research into this problem produced Maria, a virtual teaching assistant (TA). This initial version of Maria was able to answer student questions, provide error explanations, and praise students for effort on programming assignments. This research continues work on the Maria project with three design goals: (1) reducing obstacles to use of Maria, (2) allowing Maria to provide better academic support, and (3) allowing Maria to provide better emotional support (with less focus on this goal). Improvements were made to the initial version of Maria, including increasing the number of questions that Maria could answer, allowing Maria to suggest questions for students to ask, and adding longer back-and-forth dialogs between Maria and students. Following this, Maria was deployed to students for an evaluation. The evaluation revealed that certain features were popular (including the longer dialogs and easier access to error explanation) and that Maria was unable to provide relevant answers to many questions asked by students. Using data from the evaluation, more improvements were made to Maria to address some of her shortcomings and build on her popular features. Answers to more questions were added for questions about testing, general knowledge questions, questions about many other topics. Many of these new answers used the popular back-and-forth dialog feature. Additionally, this research discusses a system that could be used to automate the creation of new answers for Maria or any virtual teaching assistant using crowdsourcing.

Master of Science / Department of Psychology / Richard J. Harris / The increasing number of non-native English-speaking instructors in American universities constitutes an issue of controversial debate, concerning the interaction of native English- speaking students and non-native English speaking instructors. This study investigated the effects of native or non-native speakers and audiovisual or audio-only lecture mode on English native speakers’ comprehension and memory for information from a classroom lecture, measuring both factual memory and strength of pragmatic inferences drawn from the text. College students (N = 130) were tested on their comprehension of information derived from basic entomology lectures given by both an English native speaker and an English non-native speaker GTA. Participants also evaluated both lecturers in terms of communication skills. Results indicated that participants evaluated the native speaker as having better communication skills, which is in accordance with previous studies suggesting that both the difficulty of understanding non-native-accented speech (Reddington, 2008) and the possibility of prejudice triggered when listeners hear a non-native accent (Bresnahan et al., 2002) influence listeners’ evaluations of English non-native speaker instructors. Results revealed that familiarity with the topic also played an important role in listening comprehension, especially for lectures given by the non-native speaker. Likewise, the access to visual cues (gestures and facial expressions) enhanced understanding, but it was not a pre-requisite for adequate comprehension when the topic of the lectures did not require visual information. These findings were consistent with the polystemic speech perception approach (Hawkins, 2003), in that it is not essential to recognize all words in text in order to make connections with previous knowledge and construct meaning. Furthermore, overall participants took longer to answer questions from lectures given by the non-native speaker than by the native speaker. This suggests that non-native-accented speech may require more time to answer questions related to that speech, although listeners can adapt to it quickly (Derwing, 1995). Findings from this study are important in suggesting tools for thinking about how different aspects of a lecture can contribute to the learning process. Implications for further research are addressed.