Thejomayi Akkoor
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Annaliese Paulson
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Higher Education / Education
Program:
Authors: Thejo Akkoor, Annaliese Paulson
Session: Session 1: 9:00 am – 9:50 am
Poster: 32
Abstract
Because of the rising unemployment rates and rising competition for college admissions, it has come time to examine whether college education requirements benefit students beyond college. Anna Paulson’s research examines the types of assignments that students at different universities in Texas are required to complete and whether these assignments prepare individuals for skills that are applicable in the future through an analysis of syllabi and student transcripts. Through conducting this research, we will be able to understand whether students at more well-resourced institutions encounter more active approaches to learning (i.e. writing assignments, oral presentations, and group projects) as opposed to students at less well-resourced institutions. In order to understand the types of assignments that students are given at Texas universities, we developed a codebook of assignment types through annotating syllabi on a software called LabelStudio. Within this software, we are given a certain number of syllabi within which we highlight the different assignment descriptions and their points/percentage values under different labels (i.e. writing assignments, oral presentations, exams/tests/quizzes, homework, participation, group projects, labs). We analyzed over 2000+ syllabi per person in order to develop and validate a codebook in this first phase of the project, allowing for 48,068 syllabi to be automatically labeled using a machine learning model. The results yielded thus far reveal that English classes require far more writing than Math classes, which in turn require more tests and exams. Next steps for this research entails cross-referencing student transcripts with syllabi to understand the different approaches to learning across different institutions. We are identifying the type of work assigned at different institutions in order to understand how universities (well-resourced vs poorly resourced) differ in approaches to student learning. The next phase of this study includes examining unemployment records to identify individual success rates beyond the university. This research study will ultimately foster an understanding of how institutional policies and resources shape pedagogical practices, and how pedagogical practices in turn affect longer-term student outcomes.
