Friday, December 4, 2009

New Research Question(s) and Measure(s)

In the SOTL Workshop held on Dec. 4th, 2009 we learned the following:

1) Our survey should include measures of how important the subjects feel creativity is to their work, e.g.,:

Ask the subjects to Agree or Disagree with statements that elicit a measure of how these students feel about studying or engaging in exercises about creativity.

For example:

Agree or Disagree

Film students should take classes about meaning in film.

Film students should study how other filmmakers approach issues of creativity.


2) Additional measures of creativity and self-assessment of imagination etc. exist.

For example, Joe Khatena and E. Paul Torrance have created scales known as the Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory (KTCPI) for self report on measures of creativity which can be accessed in two sub-tests:

A) Something About Myself (SAM) which measures artistic inclination, intelligence, individuality, sensitivity, initiative, and self-strength

B) What Kind of Person Are You? (WKOPAY) which measures imagination, appeal to authority, self-confidence, inquisitiveness, and awareness of others.


3) Learning Styles

Anthony Gregorc's "Style Delineator Approach" (which is in dispute) is based on studies into the functions of the left and right brain hemispheres. Gregorc's system of learning claims to take into account the different ways of perceiving and ordering information. Gregorc argues students either perceive things in methods that are concrete-oriented (from our physical senses) or abstract-oriented (from logical, deductive reasoning). Per Gregorc, ordering is making sense out of what we perceive. Ordering can either be sequential (organized, systematic) or random (unorganized).

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Scales

Here's a great link that so very clearly describes best practices for using scales in research: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/scallik.php

Friday, September 11, 2009

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity


Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, talks about the impossible things we expect from artists and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius.

Monday, August 10, 2009

UFVA Panel Presentation

Helping Students Discover the Central Organizing Principle for their Films: An Empirical Study to Determine Creative Self-Efficacy
Lisa Mills, Ph.D.
Randy Finch, J.D.
University of Central Florida

Research Problems
Too many students are making films that are at best, derivative and at worst, shallow or superficial.
Students do not work hard enough or long enough developing the premise or Central Organizing Principle of their films.
Students do not consider whether their films have something meaningful to say.

Research Questions
What are faculty doing to encourage meaning and creativity?
How can we teach students about film making while encouraging original insights?
Are we enhancing potential or simply providing tools for conformity?

More Research Questions
Is it even possible to teach students to be more creative?
Do exercises exist which give students real experience with the process of original thought?
If so, is it possible to design a study that measures the effectiveness of such creativity exercises?

Background for Our Study
UCF’s narrative and documentary BFA aims to guide students toward the indy film genre and away from the industrial model
This study is supported by UCF’s “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” program
Lisa Mills teaches documentary film, Randy Finch teaches narrative film. (Both teach in the Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema MFA program as well).

Recent Studies in Film Pedagogy

Jon Stahl (2002) used the Hollywood model to develop his model for a Media Writing course but collected no data to determine its effectiveness
David Franklin (2001) explored the effects of “professor censorship” as creative limitation for student films but collected only anecdotal evidence in his classroom.
Frank Tomasulo (2008) quantified artistic learning outcomes for assessment purposes at FSU

Relevant Studies in Education and Social Psychology
Jean Piaget (educator) connected creativity to the process of discovery
Theresa Amabile (social psychologist) found evidence that intrinsic motivation brought a more creative outcome than extrinsic (reward)
Most educational and psychological studies have been conducted on small children
Creativity in the form of “problem solving” and “critical thinking” has been studied in adult workplaces.

Philosophical Foundations
Aristotle, Kant, Schiller, Jung
The ability to conceptualize the imaginary is the basis of the human creative experience
There is an “unconscious element” that must be harvested in the creative process
There is a psychological need to satisfy the Ego

Lajos Egri
Connected storytelling with “its basis in the creative interpretation of human motives”
A story’s premise can be written in one simple, declarative sentence (Central Organizing Principle)
“Something (main character trait) leads to something (a universal truth realized by the character through the dialectic)”

Methodological Concerns
Discomfort with evaluation of students’ creativity
SOtL requires approval by the Institutional Review Board, thus limiting the kind of data would could collect in small production classes
What could we really measure?

Our Study Design
Create exercises to help students develop their COP
Collect student responses to exercises (immediately following and 24 hours after)
Pretest/Post-test/Control design to test for a significant difference in creative self-efficacy at the beginning and end of the term

We invite you to join us
We need data from a variety of programs and students
We provide you the exercises and student response instruments (we also need control groups who do not receive exercises)
We support your efforts to get the data to us for analysis
We’ll do everything we can to make it easy for you!

Study Timeframe
Early Fall 2009 receive IRB approval
Mid-Late Fall 2009 pilot tests (are we measuring what we think we’re measuring?)
Spring 2010 first data collection series
Fall 2010 second data collection series
Spring 2011 data analysis
Summer 2011 report results at UFVA
Goal is to produce a publishable paper

Contact Information
Lisa Mills (407) 823-3606 lmills@mail.ucf.edu
Randy Finch (407) 823-6111 rfinch@mail.ucf.edu

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Experimental Design, Draft 1

Group 1: Doc with exercises (Doc stimulus or DS)
Group 2: Narrative with exercises Narrative stimulus or NS)
Group 3: Doc without exercises (Doc control or DC)
Group 4: Narrative without exercises (Narrative control or NC)


Fall 09: Doc and Narrative control groups (DC1, NC1)
Spring 10: Doc and Narrative stimulus groups (DS1, NS1)
Fall 10: Doc and Narrative control groups (DC2, NC2)
Fall 11: Doc and Narrative stimulus groups (DS2, NS2)

Proposed Locations:
Orlando, Pittsburgh, Utah, North Carolina
We will need letters of support from these institutions for IRB approval


Fall 09 Spring 10 Fall 10 Spring 11
DC1, NC1 DS1, NS1 DC2, NC2 DS2, NS2
Pretest/Post-test Pretest/Post-test Pretest/Post-test Pretest/Post-

Tierney and Farmer Study: CS-E Determinants

Reading the Tierney and Farmer (2002) study on the plane back to Orlando gave me some ideas about setting up our survey instrument. The article explains more about how Bandura’s creativity-specific self-efficacy is different from general self-efficacy. They used Gist and Mitchell’s (1992) model to guide them in the selection of several creative self-efficacy (CS-E) determinants. In their investigation of blue collar and white collar workers they studied both personal and contextual sources. The personal sources of CS-E were job knowledge and job self-efficacy. The two contextual sources of CS-E were supervisor behavior and job complexity. Thus, there were a total four specific independent variables for which they wanted to test. I got to thinking about our study and felt we could study some very similar variables among narrative and documentary students. I have outlined them in the table below:

Items for survey instruments, draft 1.
(7-point Likert scale: strongly disagree, disagree, not sure, agree, strongly agree)

Independent Variable Item

Knowledge/Experience I have directed at least one short narrative (documentary).
Knowledge/Experience I have written at least one short script.
Knowledge/Experience I can define the Central Organizing Principle of a narrative film or documentary.
Knowledge/Experience I could easily explain the relationship between character, conflict and resolution in a narrative film or documentary.

Learning self-efficacy I’ve always done well in school.
Learning self-efficacy I am a good student.
Learning self-efficacy I am confident in my ability to complete my degree.
Learning self-efficacy I am a quick learner.
Learning self-efficacy I work hard and make good grades.
Learning self-efficacy I enjoy learning new things.
Learning self-efficacy I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively.

Creative self-efficacy I am good at coming up with new ideas:
Creative self-efficacy I have a lot of good ideas:
Creative self-efficacy I have a good imagination:
Creative self-efficacy In the future, I can write meaningful original stories:

Modeling/Persuasive Teacher My teacher bolsters my confidence in my creative ability.
(add more items from Tierney and Farmer study)

Demographics Age
Demographics Gender
Demographics Course (doc or narrative)
Demographics Status (transfer or 4-year)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Exercise: Does "Personal Connection to COP" Affect Positive Feelings About Future Creativity?

Introduction (provided to both Control Group and Randomly Selected Subject Group)

Lajos Egri believed all good dramatic writing hinges on people and their relationships, which serve to move the story forward and give it life. Egri wrote that character and specifically the changes caused by character were a key part of the human experience. And Egri thought that all dramatic writing required strong characters who were in conflict. Egri went on to say that all successful dramas shared another key trait: They all had a point, a central meaning, they were all organized around one central organizing principle that he called a premise. For Egri, the premise of any work of dramatic literature could be expressed in a single sentence that is a clear statement that suggests character, conflict and resolution.

Here's a recipe for writing a one sentence statement of premise:
1) The first part of what Egri called the premise should represent character. Usually if you think about the protagonist and his or her defining character trait, you have the beginning of a premise. So, if you know your protagonist's defining trait (e.g., honesty, dishonesty, selfishness, ruthlessness, ambition, false pride, or whatever else sets the protagonist into action), try writing a single sentence statement of theme that uses that defining trait as the subject.
2) The second part of the premise (typically the verb in the premise sentence) should indicate where the dramatic conflict will come from. Think about the protagonist’s character and his or her goal and what stands in the way of that goal. For example: If the protagonist is in love and insists on seeing his love, even though forbidden to see his beloved at the risk of death, the second part of the premise might be “defies” as in: Great love defies even death.
If the protagonist is a liar and is caught in a lie, the second part might connect the trait of dishonesty to the result: Dishonesty leads to exposure.
3) The third part of the C.O.P. (the object) should indicate the resolution of the story.

To practice Egri's ideas about writing a premise, today we're going to do an exercise that will require you to analyze the movie we've just seen in class that is thematically about "greed." In Egri's view, a filmmaker making a film about greed needs to know what he or she wants to say about greed. The filmmaker shouldn't just make a film "about greed." According to Egri, the filmmakers needs to know what direction the story will go. For example, a filmmaker might crystallize the premise of their story about greed from a vast world of one sentence statements of theme or premise:
Greed leads to destruction.
Greed leads to loss of love.
Greed leads to isolation.
Greed leads to humiliation.

Exercise:

Answer the following questions considering the movie we've just seen that is about "greed."
Who is the protagonist?
What is the protagonist's goal?
What stands in the way of achieving that goal (what is the source of conflict)?
Write a one-sentence statement of premise.

For our research:

Control group gets no further instruction.

Randomly Selected Subject group gets the additional instructions:

"Egri also recommended that the one sentence statement of theme should be something the creator personally believes.

Do you think the filmmaker of the film selected for today's exercise (a movie about greed) actually PERSONALLY believed the premise, or did they just make a movie about greed that didn't necessarily reflect their personal feelings about greed?

Do you agree with Egri that the best work will result when the premise statement summarizes the theme of the film AND the author's own feelings?

Does it make sense that your work as a filmmaker will be stronger when you PERSONALLY believe in your premise?"

Metric:

Before and after the exercise ask both the Control Group and the Randomly Selected Subjects to Respond to Prompts about Creativity (presented in a Likert Scale fashion). Note: we might actually use some prompts based on Beghetto (2006):

I am good at coming up with new ideas:

I have a lot of good ideas:

I have a good imagination:

In the future, I can write meaningful original stories:


Likert, R. (1932). A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes, Archives of Psychology, No.140

Beghetto (2006)

see also, Kaufman and Baer (2004)

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Exercise Assessment Surveys

I feel strongly these ought to be brief and it would be very interesting to give them twice: immediately following the exercise on paper, and then we could have students complete a "second survey" electronically 24 hours after the exercise. It would be interesting to compare the results. Here are some possible Likert statements:

1). This exercise was fun.
LIKERT CHOICES: (strongly disagree) (disagree) (not sure) (agree) (strongly agree)
2). This exercise was relevant to the course.
3). By completing this exercise, I learned something new.
4). This exercise helped me think differently about my film.
5). This exercise will result in me changing something about my film.

Some Exercises

Couldn't sleep, so typed up these four exercises. Mine are "L1-L4," so Randy yours could be "R1-R4" or however many you would like to consider. Of these four I'm submitting only the first and third are original. The second comes from Rabiger and Randy I believe you've done the fourth one in your classes and I borrowed it after a conversation with you last year (?) It would be very interesting to talk to other teachers about what they do to help their students find focus in their art projects. For example, how does Stella Sung help her composition students narrow down their musical ideas to one major melody or motif?

Exercises, listed in the particular order they will be administered in class during the term. None of these exercises involve work outside of class. All of these are in addition to regular course assignments such as writing a treatment, proposal, screenplay, etc.

L1: Target (2nd class meeting)

Objective: Students understand they will make deliberate choices when constructing their film; that those choices ought to be based on a combination of information and instinct; that each student approaches their film from a different place in their lives; that their peers are important resources upon which they ought to rely for help and guidance; that each film must aim for a central organizing principle and that this COP may be difficult, but not impossible to “target.”

Procedure: Before students enter the classroom the teacher obtains a stack of paper from which the students will be making paper airplanes. The paper sheets should be a variety of colors and sizes. The teacher will also need a chalkboard or erase board for the end of the exercise.
1). Students are asked if they are comfortable where they are seated on this day and given the choice to move to another seat if they would like. They will not be given any other chances to move (they are not told why). Students are asked to pause and think about why they chose this particular location to sit in the classroom.
2). Students are then told they will be making a paper airplane and there are no rules about the object’s size, color, etc. Students are asked to come forward and choose the paper they want for their airplane. As students walk back to their desks they are asked to pause and think about why they chose the particular piece of paper they picked up.
3). Students are then told to make their paper airplane. They are advised that they may ask a classmate for help at any time. Students are asked to pause and think about why they are making the plane in this way. Did someone show them how to do it this way when they were a child? Did they figure it out on their own in their room one day? They should stop and think about how they usually learn the way to do things.
4). When students have all made their planes the teacher then draws a target on the board. The center of the target is labeled as the central organizing principle. At this time the teacher explains what a COP is and its relevance to the course and to the students’ films. This may take 10-30 minutes. At the end of the explanation, students are invited to stand at their desk and try to hit the target with their airplane. The planes fall to the ground in front of the blackboard.
5). Students are asked to think about whether their chances of hitting the target would have been better had they decided to move to a different place in the classroom. They are invited to pick up their planes and move to a different place in the classroom if they think it will improve their chances of hitting the target. They are asked to pause and think about how allowing themselves to move into a different state of mind or workflow could improve their ability to make important choices for their films. They are allowed to throw their planes at the target again.
6). Classroom discussion follows
7). Exercise assessment survey follows

Outcome: Students will have this experience to remember when they are making choices for their films. The act of actually making something and aiming it at a target gives them a different perspective on the filmmaking process and the difficulty/importance of aiming for a COP and getting each scene in the film as close to the COP as possible.

L2: COP Scene Analysis (assigned 4th class meeting)

Objective: Students identify the central organizing principle of the film; they identify and analyze scenes that support or do not support the film’s COP and argue why they do or do not; students identify parts of the film that may or may not be relevant

Procedure: In class, students are shown a film they likely have never seen before, and this film must have a strong central organizing principle. Before the film is screened they are given a blank template “scene analysis” sheet. They are asked to follow the following instructions:

“You are about to see a film that has a definitive central organizing principle. Your first task in watching the film is to identify what you believe this COP to be, and state in the way you have been instructed (____ leads to _____). (Review notes about this from a previous class). In addition to identifying the film’s COP you are to identify and briefly analyze at least 3 scenes in which the COP is supported, either through dialogue, setting, camera angle, etc. Take a look at the scene analysis sheet you’ve been given and use this sheet during the screening to take notes. At the end of the film we will discuss the COP of the film and the notes you have taken.”
Exercise assessment survey follows.

Outcome: Students will be better able to identify the COP in their own films and understand that the more tightly each scene is woven by the COP, the stronger the premise of their film will be.

L3: Character, Conflict, Resolution (Assigned 6th class)

Objective: Students begin to identify the central characters, conflict and resolution of their own films.

Procedure: Students are asked to write an essay about their film during class. The essay will be divided into five parts:
1). Thesis statement (what I am going to write about and why)
2). Character (major traits that drive or motivate)
3). Conflict (nature of the conflict, i.e. man vs man, man vs himself, man vs nature, etc.)
4). Resolution (how the main character changes to prove the premise)
5). Concluding statement (after writing about these things I have learned…)
Students will initially be given one hour to write their essay. They may need more or less. Students will be asked to volunteer to read their essay in class, but this is optional. A brief class discussion may follow each essay.
Exercise assessment survey follows.

Outcome: Students are given the valuable opportunity to spend quiet time in class organizing their thoughts about the C-C-R and COP for their own films. Writing an essay helps them frame their film in these terms. They may discover they know more or less about their film than they thought.

L4: Scene Card Shuffle (to be administered after students have shot about ¼ to 1/3 of their documentary films or after they have a revised, but not final draft of their screenplay in hand)

Objective: Students envision their film structure in a different, more flexible way because they can easily shuffle and move scenes around.

Procedure: Students are given a small stack of lined note cards, with the following instructions:
1). Write your COP in big letters on the first card.
2). Describe your opening scene on one card and your closing scene on another card.
3). Describe any scenes or interviews you have already shot on individual cards (at least three).
4). After you have made your cards, come forward and get tape or push pins. Find a spot on the wall in this classroom and pin or tape your cards onto the wall. The idea is to see how your film is structured, identify what is still missing, and possibly rearrange some of the scenes to make your film work better. You may add scene cards at will, whether they are shot yet or not, written or not.
5). Take a step back from the wall after you’ve done some rearranging. Does your film prove its premise? Do each of your scenes support your central organizing principle?
6). Class discussion follows the exercise.
Exercise assessment survey follows.

Outcome: Students may realize what’s missing or what needs rearranging in their film. Viewing their scenes on note cards that are easy to rearrange may make them feel more free to make script or story changes that lead to better dramatic structure.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Tierney & Farmer Study of Creative Self-Efficacy

Creative Self-Efficacy: Its Potential Antecedents and Relationship to Creative Performance
Author(s): Pamela Tierney and Steven M. Farmer
Source: The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 45, No. 6 (Dec., 2002), pp. 1137-1148
Published by: Academy of Management
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3069429

Primer on Self-efficacy

Title: Self-efficacy. By: Bandura, Albert, Harvard Mental Health Letter, 10575022, Mar97, Vol. 13, Issue 9
Database: Academic Search PremierHTML Full TextSELF-EFFICACY
Section: INSIGHTS
To realize their aims, people try to exercise control over the events that affect their lives. They have a stronger incentive to act if they believe that control is possible -- that their actions will be effective. Perceived self-efficacy, or a belief in one's personal capabilities, regulates human functioning in four mayor ways:
Cognitive: People with high self-efficacy are more likely to have high aspirations, take long views, think soundly, set themselves difficult challenges, and commit themselves firmly to meeting those challenges. They guide their actions by visualizing successful outcomes instead of dwelling on personal deficiencies or ways in which things might go wrong.

Motivational: People motivate themselves by forming beliefs about what they can do, anticipating likely outcomes, setting goals, and planning courses of action. Their motivation will be stronger if they believe they can attain their goals and adjust them based on their progress. Self-efficacy beliefs determine the goals people set for themselves, how much effort they expend, how long they persevere, and how resilient they are in the face of failures and setbacks.

Mood or Affect:
How much stress or depression people experi`ence in threatening or difficult situations depends largely on how well they think they can cope. Efficacy beliefs regulate emotional states in several ways: (1) People who believe they can manage threats are less distressed by them; those who lack self-efficacy are more likely to magnify risks. (2) People with high self-efficacy lower their stress and anxiety by acting in ways that make the environment less threatening. (3) People with high coping capacities have better control over disturbing thoughts. Research shows that what causes distress is not the sheer frequency of the thoughts but the inability to turn them off. People with high self-efficacy are able to relax, divert their attention, calm themselves, and seek support from friends, family, and others. For someone who is confident of getting relief in these ways, anxiety and sadness are easier to tolerate.

(4) Furthermore, low self-efficacy can lead directly to depression in at least three ways: (a) A person who feels unable to prevent recurrent depressive thoughts or dejected rumination is more likely to have repeated episodes of depression. (b) Low self-efficacy causes the defeat of one's hopes, and the resulting low mood further weakens self-efficacy, creating a vicious downward cycle. (c) People with low self-efficacy do not develop the satisfying social relationships that make chronic stress easier to bear. The resulting sense of social inefficacy not only contributes directly to depression but further reduces social support.

People with high self-efficacy, by contrast, attract support from others, which reinforces their ability to cope. Others supply incentives and resources, provide good examples to model, and demonstrate the value of perseverance.

People who believe in their efficacy create benign environments in which they exercise some control. The effect on their choice of careers and the course of their lives is profound. Studies show that they consider more career options, show greater interest in them, prepare themselves better for different careers, and persevere more in their chosen pursuits.

Optimism is necessary for accomplishment and a sense of well-being. In a world full of impediments, adversities, and frustrations, people with a robust sense of personal efficacy are more likely to succeed. To some they may seem unrealistic, but so called realists too often abandon difficult pursuits or become cynical about the prospects for change. Optimism about oneself is an adaptive bias, not a cognitive failing.

To sum up, people with a low sense of efficacy avoid difficult tasks. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to their goals. They turn inward on their self-doubts instead of thinking about how to perform successfully. When faced with difficult tasks, they dwell on obstacles, the consequences of failure, and their personal deficiencies. Failure makes them lose faith in themselves because they blame their own inadequacies. They slacken or give up in the face of difficulty, recover slowly from setbacks, and easily fall victim to stress and depression.

People with high perceived self-efficacy, by contrast, approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than threats to be avoided. They are deeply interested in what they do, set high goals, and sustain strong commitments. They concentrate on the task, not on themselves. They blame their failures on remediable ignorance, lack of skill, or insufficient effort. They redouble their effort in the face of obstacles and soon recover confidence after a setback. This outlook sustains motivation, reduces stress, and lowers any vulnerability to depression.

Psychological treatments work best when they provide not specific remedies for particular problems but tools for managing any situation that might arise. Treatment should equip people to take control of their lives and start a process of self-regulative change guided by a resilient sense of personal efficacy. There are four main ways to accomplish this:

(1) Experience of success or mastery in overcoming obstacles: The kind of success that makes a person stronger results from perseverance through difficulties and setbacks. A person who has only easy successes may be easily discouraged by failure.

(2) Social modeling: If you see people like yourself succeed, you are more likely to believe that you have the capacity to do so. Observing the failures of others instills doubts about one's own ability to master similar activities.

(3) Social persuasion: If people are persuaded to believe in themselves, they will exert more effort and increase their chances of success. But effective social persuaders do more to strengthen self-efficacy: they try to arrange things for others in ways that bring success and avoid placing them prematurely in situations where they are likely to fail.

(4) Reducing stress and depression, building physical strength, and learning how to interpret physical sensations: People rely on their physical and emotional states to judge their capabilities. They read tension, anxiety, and depression as signs of personal deficiency. In activities that require strength and stamina, they interpret fatigue and pain as indicators of low physical efficacy.

Here are some examples of the way self-efficacy works in psychological treatment:

Phobias: It is often assumed that phobias are mainly the result of anxiety. In this view, people with phobias avoid many situations and constrict their lives because they fear being overcome by a panic reaction or other catastrophe. But apparently a perceived lack of coping efficacy breeds anxiety, not the other way around. Studies have shown that low self-efficacy predicts variation in phobic behavior even when anxiety is removed, but anxiety does not predict phobic behavior when variation in self-efficacy is removed. This result has been corroborated for a wide variety of threats in a wide variety of situations.

Phobias can be treated by a method known as guided mastery. First the therapist models feared activities (shows the patient how to confront them). Then the task of overcoming fear is broken down into readily mastered small steps. At each stage, patients are asked to perform for a slightly longer time, doing only what is within their capacities. Most guided mastery treatments also try to alter maladaptive thinking. In the final phase, the therapist uses self-directed mastery experiences designed to confirm the patient's coping capacity. In this way even the most taxing or threatening activities become possible. Guided mastery works faster and more effectively than exposure alone in eliminating anxiety and phobias. Studies show that it reduces both subjective and physiological anxiety, transforms fearful attitudes, stops phobic ruminations and nightmares, and lowers high levels of stress hormones.

Physical Health: Efficacy beliefs affect physical health in at least two ways. First, a belief in the ability to cope with sources of stress reduces biological reactions that can impair immune function. Second, efficacy beliefs largely determine whether people consider changing their health habits and whether they succeed in making and maintaining the change. Perceived self-efficacy also helps to prevent existing disease from becoming worse. New case management systems based on self-regulation have been successful in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and improving the functioning of people with chronic illnesses.

Alcohol and Drug Abuse: In the treatment of alcohol and drug abuse, perceived self-regulatory capacity predicts not only who will relapse and how soon, but what the response to a relapse will be. People with a strong belief in their efficacy regard a slip as a temporary setback and redouble their efforts; those who distrust their capacity for self-regulation are more likely to give up and relapse permanently. Ratings of efficacy in various domains can be used to reveal areas in which substance abusers are vulnerable or treatments deficient.

~~~~~~~~

by Albert Bandura


Albert Bandura, Ph.D., is the David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. He is the author of Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York: Freeman 1997).


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Student's Self Report: What Metric?

On July 27th, 2009 Lisa Mills and Randy Finch met with Eric Main to discuss our research.

One of the key problems we discussed was the measurement of student response.

We are still engaged in the process of defining our research question and what exercise we will use for our research. But we are also asking what measures to use. Randy has a bias in favor of "indirect" measures, because issues of bias and subjectivity can be finessed. Consequently, Randy is inclined to use the 3 Question ("indirect") self report of creativity from Beghetto in 2006?

I am good at coming up with new ideas?
I have a lot of good ideas?
I have a good imagination?

Or should be use the self-efficacy questions posed originally by Bandura?

We could add our own questions to these (social-constructivist) instruments, that focus more on the individual.

Here is a review of how the Research Questions could be applied:

a) Students would self-report (i.e., answer the 3 above questions or the Bandura questions). The design of our research would be to have students self-report before and after the exercise.
b) Th next level of questions might be more objective but still in the nature of self-report: e.g., Are you able to find the COP of an existing work (before and after the exercise)? We could also examine what language the subjects use to describe the COP and the process of synthesizing the COP?
c) Students then could look at their before and after tests and compare their ability. In other words, students could write a narrative about their ability to distinguish theme before and after an exercise.
d) Can we add direct measures?
e.g., Test their ability to exclude something that doesn't belong (a scene that doesn't belong per the COP). If employing such measures injects too much subjectivity, could we measure the student's ability to apply COP? Even if the result itself isn't measured, we could ask the students to engage in the process of finding a COP and see HOW the students beahve. (e.g., Ask the students to create a meaning out of disparate elements. Then the measure would be whether they have a strategy for creating meaningful relationships between scenes, even if only meaningful TO THEM.)

Can we gather additional information which might not be a part of our central research question but could (later?) be analyzed?

For example: Can we track an exercise over time? It's tough to follow our students for a period of years. But could we follow our students over a year? It would be great to track students asking: "If you report enhanced creativity, when did the lightbulb finally go off?" On a related front: Should we ask the students to retrospectively think about creativity? "Before this exercise helped you to become creative?"

Should we try to separate out extrinsic sources of creativity (e.g., positive audience reaction) versus intrinsic sources (e.g., The statement of premise has meaning for me.).

How do we measure a student's self-report. What are we going to do to account for differences in self awareness? Is it enough to obtain a report of their intention? What about their self-report of confidence about being creative in the future?

How do these questions compare to asking for a student's report of what the audience experience will be?

Can we (indirectly) ask about their world view? (e.g., Who are your role models? What do you care about?) And can we track changes in these conceptual touchstones?

Are the student's prepared to risk more?

Beghetto, R. Creative Self-Efficacy: Correlates in Middle And Secondary Students, Creativity Research Journal, Vol 18, No. 4, 447-457, 2006.

Trinh Minh-Ha: The Other Cendorship


Trinh T. Minh-ha (born 1952) is a filmmaker, writer, academic and composer who writes and makes films about the bias's we have toward creativity and the acts of creation.

SOAP: Questions We Could Ask Our Students

SOAP
SOAPSTone (Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone) is an acronym for a series of questions that students must first ask themselves, and then answer, as they begin to plan their compositions.

For the purposes, of our study we might use student self-report measures on "Subject," "Occasion," and "Audience" v. "Purpose."

Friday, July 24, 2009

One Possible Idea for Study Design: Does Internalizing the Rationale for a Screenwriting Exercise Improve Feelings of Creativity?

A recent study (Hyungshim Jang, 2008) suggests that teachers will be more successful in promoting student motivation to perform tough tasks when they provide a rationale that explains the lesson's value, helps the student understand why the lesson is worth their effort, and most importantly why the lesson has use and personal meaning for the student.

In 2008 Hyungshim Jang presented a study of rationales (reasons for a particular exercise, provided by the teacher) and a student's motivation, engagement, and learning during learning activities. In Jang's study, one hundred thirty-six undergraduate students worked on a relatively uninteresting short lesson after either receiving or not receiving a rationale. Students who received the rationale showed greater interest, work ethic, and determination. (Hyungshim Jang, 2008).

Jang's study went on to test three alternative models to see if they could account for how the rationale produced benefits: Model 1) an identified regulation model based on self-determination theory, Model 2) an interest regulation model based on interest-enhancing strategies research, and Model 3) an additive model that integrated both models. According to Jang, the data fit all three models; however, only the first model (based on self-determination theory) helped students' engagement and therefore, their learning.

The results of Jang's study suggest the preferred approach is to get each student to accept a rationale for undertaking a task as his or her own, rather that just generating strategies to make the task more interesting (e.g., goal setting, varying the way they do the task, working in groups, and/or making the task into a game). Getting the students to internalize the value of the learning activity seems to be the better approach.

In its broadest interpretation, Jang's study suggests how teachers can use a rationale to help students to learn.

While Jang only tested on a relatively uninteresting short lesson, we might frame our study to show how providing a rationale for a challenging exercise (i.e., persuading the students that writing a COP that has personal meaning and validity is worth the effort because it will help them with the work of filmmaking) can help students to have more positive feelings about the difficult work of creating. Specifically, can we design a study that tests whether providing students with a rationale they can internalize (getting the students to accept that writing a COP that expresses the theme of their film and their own beliefs can help with their own screenwriting), either helps or doesn't help student filmmakers to feel more creative? Does helping students to internalize the rationale for the COP exercise translate into a self-report of improved creativity?

Jang, Hyungshim . (2008). Supporting Students' Motivation, Engagement, and Learning During an Uninteresting Activity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(4), 798.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Possible Exercises

In his Appendix to Directing the Documentary, Michael Rabiger has more than 20 pages of exercises designed to help students find the focus, conflict and characterization of their documentaries. He also includes self-evaluation tools, authorship hypotheses worksheets and film analysis guidelines. I've used several of these in my Doc Workshop course and the students have had very positive feedback.

Rabiger also wrote a book on directing narrative films and I think we should get it and examine the exercises he's placed in that book. Both books have brand new editions with inaugrual companion web sites.

Self-Report for Creative Self-Efficacy

Creative self-efficacy. Three items were used to
assess students’ creative self-efficacy (α = .86). The
items were based on previous work done in the area of
creative self-efficacy (as presented by Tierney &
Farmer, 2002), definitions of creativity (Plucker,
Beghetto, & Dow, 2004), and the concept of self-efficacy
(Bandura, 1997). Specifically, items were intended
to measure students’ beliefs about their ability
to generate novel and useful ideas and whether they
viewed themselves as having a good imagination. The
three items were (a) “I am good at coming up with new
ideas,” (b) “I have a lot of good ideas,” and (c) “I have a
good imagination.”

Self-Report for Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The Work Preference
Inventory was used to measure intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, &
Tighe, 1994). The intrinsic motivation scale includes 15
items that assess the degree to which respondents enjoy
the challenge of the work at hand. Sample items are ‘‘I
enjoy tackling problems that are completely new to
me’’ and ‘‘I enjoy trying to solve complex problems.’’
Cronbach’s alpha for the intrinsic scale was 0.71. Extrinsic
motivation was also measured with a 15-item scale.
This scale includes items such as ‘‘I am strongly motivated
by the grades I can earn’’ and ‘‘As long as I can
do what I enjoy, I’m not that concerned about exactly
what grades or awards I can earn.’’ Cronbach’s alpha
for the extrinsic scale was 0.65. Each item for both the
intrinsic and extrinsic scale was followed by a four-point
scale where 1 ¼ Never or almost never true of you, 2 ¼ Sometimes true of you, 3 ¼ Often true of you, and 4 ¼ Always or almost always true of you.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Research Problem and Hypotheses

Research problem: Students do not create well-structured, meaningful films.

Egri’s Creative Model: Playwrights must develop a premise (also known as a theme or central organizing principle (COP)). According to Egri, drama requires character, conflict and resolution (CCR) but Egri also advised writers to search for a simple one sentence statement of their theme. A premise or COP is a one sentence statement of the big idea behind a dramatic work that a writer can use to organize their creative efforts.

Our Pedagogical Model: Students discover their COP and use it to develop their CCR by choosing from a list of exercises (intrinsic self-motivation) which will not be graded by the instructor (no extrinsic reward).

Research method:
1) Pre-test self-report determines a) level of intrinsic motivation and b) creative self-efficacy (other independent variable information collected, such as age, gender, etc.)
2) Test Group A: Students choose their own exercises which are not graded
Test Group B: Students are assigned exercises which are graded
Control Group C: No exercises are available or assigned

3) Post-test self-report determines which exercises were completed and creative self-efficacy (How can we test for film structure and meaning? Outside evaluators?)

Hypotheses:
H1: The higher the level of intrinsic motivation on pretest, the more exercises the student will complete
H2: The lower the level of intrinsic motivation on pretest, the fewer exercises the student will complete
H3: The more exercises the student completes, the higher their post-test score will be in creative self-efficacy
H4: The more exercises the student completes, the more significant difference will be present when comparing pretest and post-test measures of creative self-efficacy
H5: Some independent variables, such as gender, will be predictors of creative self-efficacy

RQ1: Which group will produce the best-structured and most meaningful films?

Evaluating Creativity

Evaluating Creativity (edited by Sefton-Green and Sinker)

Traditional certainties about value, quality and taste are not absolute, but socially contingent—a struggle for control over meaning—“taste classifies the classifier.”
(Pierre Bourdieu, 1984)

If art is about personal growth and development, then all that you can evaluate is the student, rather than the work. Is that a proper role for a teacher? Some would say no, but students seem to appreciate and expect teachers to fill that role. (Gilbert, 1989)

Evaluation is an inappropriate response to creative production (Ross et al 1993).
So then, how do you argue for the validity of arts in education? (Abbs, 1994).

(There was an increase in vocational focus in public education in the late 1980s and by the early 1990s educators were writing a lot of articles arguing about whether this was a good or bad thing. Most tried to argue it was bad)

Creativity is defined differently by each subject and this should connect with how ability and advancement are measured.

Contradictions arise most in the evaluation process, so what is the role/importance of:
-the process of making the project
-the project itself
-the evaluation of the project
-the audience
Some kind of acceptable balance must be struck.

There is an ongoing debate about the value of art in terms of what it brings to society and what it brings to the individual.

Society: development of empathy and insight, cultural heritage, enlightened populace
Individual: facilitates cognitive skills, helps people grow, think and feel

What does our film department want?
-what do we value? –what kind of rigor is expected in a student film?
-how does that affect the way we evaluate or assess our students’ work?

Evaluation: Often discursive, qualitative. Can be ambiguous, judgmental.
Assessment: Summative, quantitative. Often feels institutional, analytical.

Social-psychology of creativity

Amabile on Creativity Research

Psychological study of creativity: the focus is on the person and their behavior, not upon what they do or make. It is the study of the creative personality, or the study of a person with a unique pattern of creative traits. (J.P. Guilford, 1950)

It’s current status:
-social psychology is the least developed area in creativity research
-there is correlational evidence that social environments do have an impact on creativity
-no particular social factors have been isolated in carefully controlled settings

Correlational patterns:
-birth order contributes to adult creativity in fairly predictable ways
-exposure to cultural diversity has a reliable positive influence
-educational environments that encourage autonomy and self-directed learning are equally important in adult work environments
**exposure to a creative model in a particular domain can increase the likelihood that a young person will do outstanding creative work in that domain.

Theoretical model (See Amabile, pp 107-127, Model, Revised Model)
-because of the nature of the factors examined, the methods employed, and the data obtained there is no common theoretical framework to motivate inquiries
-the hypothesis most thoroughly tested experimentally is the intrinsic motivation hypothesis of creativity, stating that the intrinsically (self) motivated state will be conducive to creativity, but the extrinsically motivated state (reward) will be detrimental. This hypothesis applies only to heuristic tasks, where the problem does not have a clear and straightforward path to solution. (Wallach & Kogan, 1965)

More about intrinsically motivated creativity:
-people who have worked under the imposition of salient extrinsic constraints generally produce work that is lower in creativity than that produced by people who have worked in the absence of such constraints
-These constraints include external evaluation of work or the expectation of such evaluation, offer of reward contingent upon task performance, surveillance of work, and restricted choice in task engagement
-people placed in conditions designed to enhance intrinsic motivation, such as free choice in aspects of task engagement, generally produce work that is higher in creativity than produced by people not working under such conditions.
-there are significant correlations between subjects’ expressed intrinsic interest in their work and the related creativity of that work
**THEREFORE social factors that enhance an individual’s motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake will also enhance creative performance on the activity; factors that undermine that motivation, or factors that make more salient the motivation to engage in the activity for some external goal, will undermine creativity.

Independent Variables: Cognitive mechanisms, social-environmental factors
Dependent Variables: Creative outcome of the nonlinear task

Future research:
-longer temporal span
-greater control of factors
-more experimental research
-more study of global social environments, such as families, classrooms, workplaces, societies and cultures

LINKS:


Thursday, July 2, 2009

Steve Meeting 7.1.09

I met with Steve yesterday to catch up on our summer so far. At a point that felt comfortable, I steered the conversation toward our research. Through talking with Steve about the problems I've been having with a-evaluating a student's creative work and b-imposing structure on the creative process I believe I may have come upon a new way to approach this research.

It seems to me the two main struggles I have as an "art teacher" are 1). how to fairly evaluate my students' "art projects" and 2). figuring out exactly how much "structure" to impose upon their creative process as they bring their project to life.

The literature I've been reading reminds me that the word "value" exists inside the word evaluate, so if a student's values differ from my own then my evaluation of their work isn't really justified. What to do about this? Be sure that the student understands and buys into the values of the course and creates their project knowing their work will be judged based upon the core common values upon which the course is built.

As for imposing structure, there is plenty of literature to support the notion that the creative process can survive, even thrive if thoughtful constraints are placed upon that process. The constraints must exhibit the values discussed above and must be relevant to the desired outcome of the final project. They cannot be constraints associated only with the natural power struggle that exists between student and teacher.

For our study we need to decide what kind of outcome we want before we can design the assessment tools and exercises. We cannot get protocol approval until we determine what kind of data we will collect and how we will collect it. Therefore: theory+exercises+assessment tools= outcome. We must define and develop each variable in this equation, working backwards from outcome.

Outcome: I wish to shift our emphasis away from the creative project itself to the process by which students make their project. The desired outcome could be simply this: "The student's film was the result of disciplined and creative planning, research and direction." The outcome to be evaluated is the process, rather than the product.

Assessment tools: I wish to shift our emphasis away from our own evaluation to evaluations made by the students themselves. These tools could be online surveys, a blog, a journal, etc. but the students themselves will make these assessments. Each assessment must be tied into a particular stage of the process. A final cumulative assessment will be made by the student on whether their overall process evoked the core values of the course. I would suggest the completion of the assessment tools be considered for the student's course grade but that the actual "scores" on the assessment tools NOT be a part of the grade. (I have a concern that the IRB only understands survey research and would not approve of us collecting data from something more personal, like a journal or blog).

Exercises: This was the most fun part of my discussion with Steve yesterday, but I think the development of these exercises will be the biggest challenge. There are two big questions here: 1). Do we incorporate exercises to emphasize story structure and development in addition to existing coursework or do we weave them into what we're already doing? 2). Are these exercises conducted in class our outside of class? Steve and I agreed that whatever exercises are developed, they have to go beyond the elementary "let's all work with playdough for 5 minutes and see what we come up with." They should incorporate all aspects of arts and humanities, from literature to music to art to theatre. The point of the exercises is to a). enhance the values of the course (i.e. values of Aristotle, Egri, Jung) and to b). get students to think differently about art and the hope is that they will then approach their own work with a new perspective.

Some (brief) examples Steve and I discussed:
1). In-class discussion of an abstract painting, such as a Picasso. Through discussion, help students understand what Picasso was doing and how it could be relevant to making a film.
2). Playing a TV show like "Have Gun Will Travel" while also playing classical music. Help students discover that music carries its own emotional meaning that can easily bleed over into the image, so you have to be very careful about music selection in a film. It has to be a very deliberate choice.

Theory: While I'm still struggling with this one I'm getting closer. I've already made some notes in the blog about constructivist theory. I think we need to do more searching in the film theory world. Perhaps Chris Harris could be helpful. After all, he's the one who actually comes out of an art school.

In summary, a film is only the byproduct of the process (Steve). When we all attend the student screenings at the end of the year we tend to judge students by what we see on the screen. But, I feel there should be more to a film education than that. It's not ONLY about the film they make, because 99% of the students will NOT become film makers. If we put more thought and care into the process by which they make their film they will come out of the program with a more enriched experience and knowledge they can apply to whatever it is they wind up doing for a living... or to the quality of their lives in general.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Lisa's Books

I've been checking out a lot of books in connection with this research, so below is a list of the books and maybe one piece of information I've gleaned out of each so far that seems worth following up on.

The Courage to Create by Rollo May
-Love this book, should be required reading for MFA students
-Address the artist's struggle and desire to be immortal.
-Informed by everyone from Einstein to Camus to Picasso. Fun to read.
-Often quotes Carl Jung, especially on artistic breakthrough... a process by which the consciousness gives-way to the unconcious
Teaching for Thoughtfulness: Classroom Strategies to Enhance Intellectual Development by John Barell
-at first I was rejecting any books that dealt with high school classrooms, but then I remembered that our students are not so far removed from high school and reading about what high schools are doing wrong can help us understand how to help these students.
-Barell reminds us that any strategy must lead to a clear goal (the premise of our study!) Thinking + Feeling = Thoughtfulness. This is very Jungian.
Archetypes for Writers by Jennifer Van Bergen
-This is brand new and the author teaches at New School in NYC.
-"In this book you will learn how to find your own character archetypes. Character archetypes contain the action-principles of particular human behavior." She calls this "doing arkhelogy" and her book contains lots of exercises to "develop the skills needed to do arkhelogy work." Hmm.
Evaluating Creativity: Making and learning by young people edited by Julian Sefton-Green and Rebecca Sinker
-Reminds that the word "value" exists in "evaluation," so in order to fairly evaluate any creative product, values must be established.
-"If art is about personal growth and development all that you can evaluate is the student, rather than the work, and is that a proper role for a teacher? However, students do seem to accept and appreciate this role" (Gilbert, 1989).
Teaching for Creative Endeavor by William B. Michael
-Mostly addresses teaching creativity to children, but there are some interesting models in here.
100 Ideas for Teaching Creativity by Stephen Bowkett
-some of these are downright silly, but some could work...

Relevant Philosophy

I had an interesting conversation with Steve Schlow about the other end of the creativity debate, which lies in philosophy. He introduced me to the concept of the "Aesthetic Transaction" as described by Friedrich Schiller in his essays "On the Aesthetic Education of Man." His ideas were informed by Kant's idea that "a man of feeling" has a divine impulse to create. In his "Critique of Judgement" Kant wrote "when you sit down to do a thing, the thing becomes you... you yield to the thing." Anyway, this aesthetic transaction, according to Schiller, is not necessarily knowable, but can be observed. The transaction itself drives the artist and its byproduct is the work of art. Because film is a collaborative art within an industrial system, room for the aesthetic transaction is very narrow. I'm not exactly sure how this relates to our study but I find the philsophical notion of all of this fascinating. I've got Schiller's book on reserve in the library. I've also reserved Theresa Amabile's book The Social Psychology of Creativity as recommended by Steve. Apparently he knows her and has spoken with her about this while working for Disney.

Applicable Theories?

I had my PERC appointment with Richard and that was very helpful because it determined nobody has tried to do exactly what we are doing. Richard always asks good questions and a good one was, "have you determined that there just aren't any good theories in film that would apply to this research?" The answer was no, so I went back and took at look at film theory. I then read some articles he found for me and did a little more research online. The following represents a simple list of some theories we might want to use as a foundation for our research. I've included Wikipedia links here just as an introduction, knowing that we must go to more reliable sources for citation.

1). Film Theories: Auteur; camera stylo; introduced to the US by Andrew Sarris, but originated with the French New Wave critics/directors. Some helpeful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_theory
http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/publications/16+/auteur.html
http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/publications/16+/potter.html
2). Social Psychology Theory: There are many, but I like the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Model developed by Osborn and Parnes in the 1950s-60s:
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/Brain/cps.htm
3). Education Theory: Our research seems to fall under the broad category of Constructivist Learning Theories. The father of this seems to be Jean Piaget, who did research on the fact that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences (play):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory)

Monday, March 16, 2009

PERC Appt

Lisa will meet with Richard Harrison Thursday afternoon for a private research consultation.

Relevance of our study

Rollo May's 1975 book The Courage to Create addresses the need for creative work in modern society.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Psychology Research: Sources for Theories of Education

Here is a link to a database that contains brief summaries of 50 major theories of learning and instruction.

SOTL Research: Literature Review: How to Connect Your Research to Existing Literature

SOTL Research Requires:

1) Discipline (rigorous research methods)
2) Peer-review
3) Publication
4) Generativity (building upon prior research and scholarship; i.e., LITERATURE REVIEW)

Here's a fill-in-the blanks exercise (aka a "syntactical borrowing" exercise) to help conceptualize our research. Filling in these blanks may help us to conceptualize how to build a more complete bibliography. In other words, thinking about what already exists in the literature and the niche we are filling can expand our REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE:

1) This study builds on and contributes to earlier studies on _______________.

2) Although earlier studies have examined _______________, they did not ______________.

3) As such, this study provides additional insight into ___________________.

4) The theoretical insights from ___________________ provides another contribution.

5) This study analyzes ____________________.

6) Although earlier studies in ______________ have identified ____________, little analytical attention has been paid to ________________.

7) I address this issue by studying _________.

Here's how Lisa Mills and I filled in the blanks on 3/6/9:

1) creativity
2) creativity in studio art, examine creativity in the complex art of filmmaking
3) writing for film production that involves multiple crafts and disciplines, each requiring guidance AND latitude for their creativity
4) Egri and Aristotle
5) student outcomes in screenwriting tasks (before and after) exposure to specific educational activities
6) creativity in writing, outcomes, the creative proces
7)

Note: To design our research and improve the quality of our bibliography, we'll need to think about:
1) the theories that we are testing (the "Why?"),
2) the methods we are using to test those theories (the "How?") and
3) the outcomes we are after (the "What?").

Sources for Further Research:

Music Research.

EBSCO host.

An article on Creativity and Film.

Activity Theory.

An article called One Sense is Never Enough.

IRB - SOTL Research and Human Subjects: Notes March 6, 2009

UCF's Institutional Review Board consists of a committee established to advocate for the protection of the rights and welfare of human participants involved in research.

Biographies for members of the UCF IRB can be accessed here.

UCF's IRB exists pursuant to Federal Regulations. UCF has additionally completed assurance agreements with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Research Protection, to describe the institutions’ human subjects program and assure compliance with federal regulations for human subject protection.

45 CFR 46.112 covers research on human subjects and defines research (broadly) as any "systematic investigation... designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge" (e.g., a study that will be published, presented at a conference, copied and placed in the library, etc.).

In addition, students (and their parents, if the student is under 18) have certain rights under FERPA, a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records.

To undertake research at UCF, CITI training is required.