Undergraduate Research at FIU (URFIU) Conference

The Development, Validation and Implementation of a Social Support Instrument to Predict Student Engagement in STEM Courses

FIU Wellness & Recreation Center

Being successful in school entails many different components. The components that sparked my interest include the four social supports of appraisal, instrumental, informational, and emotional that both learning assistants and the instructor can provide in a classroom. These social supports are said to impact engagement in active learning courses and therefore my research is aimed to not only investigate this but to also emphasize the validation process and its importance in educational research. My proposed hypothesis is that the specific constructs of appraisal, emotional, informational, and instrumental support are independent of each other and furthermore help increase engagement in active learning with the help of learning assistants and the instructor. Methods will include reading and analyzing previous papers on the four main social supports, collecting evidence based on response processes to improve the instrument items, conducting factor analysis, and lastly assessing predictive validation. In essence, the goal of this project is to demonstrate to individuals in society the importance of validity in research and how this can further help transition and implement the components of different social supports that affect engagement into everyday college classrooms.