Gita Taasoobshirazi

Kennesaw State University | KSU · School of Data Science and Analytics

This paper recommends that the research on giftedness, expertise, and gender/racial disparities in science be used in combination, on behalf of a new theoretical framework, for studying academic success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The variables characterizing expertise are presented followed by a discussion of what constit...

Introduction A wide range of stakeholders, including prospective students, parents, accreditors, future employers, and the general public, require detailed data on college outcomes. However, there are many challenges to producing such complex research tracking change over time in the higher education setting. Methods This multi-method longitudinal...

Collectivist values may influence one’s display of self-esteem. Past research has established an association between psychological well-being and individuals’ appraisal of their value as a member of a social group, self-evaluation as an individual, and perception of others’ evaluation of their group (collective self-esteem). This study examined col...

The present study analyzes Imposter Phenomenon (IP) through the lens of three different motivational frameworks. Expectancy Value Theory, Attribution Theory, and Self-Determination Theory were used to study IP among academics. With 72% of participants experiencing frequent or intense IP levels, IP was prevalent among those sampled. Females experien...

Stereotype threat (ST) has been extensively explored as an explanation for gender disparities in achievement and participation in mathematics. However, there is a lack of research evaluating ST in statistics. The present study evaluated the impact of ST on gender differences in student performance, self-efficacy, and anxiety in statistics using a f...

Impostor Phenomenon (IP), also called impostor syndrome, involves feelings of perceived fraudulence, self-doubt, and personal incompetence that persist despite one’s education, experience, and accomplishments. This study is the first to evaluate the presence of IP among data science students and to evaluate several variables linked to IP simultaneo...

Study purpose. The Metarepresentations Survey for Physics (MSP) was developed to assess students’ metarepresentational knowledge during physics problem solving. Materials and methods. The survey was given to 288 introductory-level college physics students. Psychometric properties of the instrument, including construct validity, were evaluated by...

This study explored college students’ individual mental health (i.e., anxious and depressive symptoms, intrapersonal identity, and ethnic identity), as well as interpersonal mental health, as assessed by their affective connection to and care for others (i.e., cognitive empathy), exploring the role of culture and identity during the twin COVID-19 a...

Rising rates of suicide over the past two decades have increased the need for wide-ranging suicide prevention efforts. One approach is to target high-risk groups, which requires the identification of the characteristics of these population sub-groups. This suicidology study was conducted using large-scale, secondary data to answer the question: usi...

Students' social experiences are critical to their academic success, including determining their motivation and engagement. However, little is known about how various social factors, including social presence and teacher involvement, relate to expectancy, task value, and facets of engagement in online learning. Using path modeling to analyze the su...

This study examines, using structural equation modeling, the mediating effects of ethnic identity and intercultural competence on historically marginalized identities (HMIs) and cognitive empathy. Participants received an Identity Scale score summing each identity marker for groups that have experienced systemic, historic marginalization (i.e., dom...

The necessity of hybrid and more accessible options for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) has taken on increased urgency in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its lasting impacts. In the New Family Wellness Project (NFWP), participants engage in a hybrid in-person and teletherapy six-session intervention for new parents early in their...

The widely used Draw a Scientist Test was revised to focus on statistics and 110 Elementary Statistics students were asked to draw a statistician. In addition, to better understand students’ drawings and have some relative comparison, 173 College Algebra students were asked to draw a mathematician. A detailed analysis of students’ images and studen...

Helping teachers understand and apply theory and research is one of the most challenging tasks of teacher preparation and professional development. As they learn about motivation and engagement, teachers need conceptually rich, yet easy-to-use, frameworks. At the same time, teachers must understand that student engagement is not separate from devel...

Despite travel restrictions, U.S. colleges invest in students’ global learning, to prepare graduates to thrive in today's interdependent society and world. This multi-method longitudinal study applies a constructive developmental and intersectional lens to examine the impact of travel and non-travel based global learning on intercultural competence...

Purpose Japanese American philosopher Magoroh Maruyama (1969) proposed the Mindscape theory, a macro model of cultural differences identification. The theory suggests inter-and intra-cultural heterogeneity and four major Mindscapes of H, I, S and G. He and his colleagues designed 64 graphic geometric patterns based on redundant and non-redundant co...

Find out how one healthcare organization implemented a comprehensive training program, including strength-based coaching, to foster leadership competencies and skill development, promote the organization's resiliency program, and nurture personal wellness.

Working from the Expectancy Value Theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000; Wigfield, Tonks, & Eccles, 2004) this study explored graduate student and faculty perceptions of utility, attainment, intrinsic, and cost value of an academic career as it relates to their experiences with imposter syndrome. • What benefits and costs do aca...

Recent research to analyze and discuss cultural differences has employed a combination of five major dimensions of individualism–collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, femininity–masculinity (gender role differentiation), and long-term orientation. Among these dimensions, individualism–collectivism has received the most attention. Chr...

After the fall of international communism in the former Soviet Union, capitalism has remained the only viable option for managing the economy. Economic and financial problems of capitalism of recent times, however, have brought forth debate about the role and shape of capitalism, and mainly its future. These problems have made it very clear that un...

In this article, we describe some of the common misconceptions guests have expressed while visiting a Museum of Natural History and Science, along with ways in which museum educators had reacted to and/or responded to guests’ misconceptions. Correcting commonly held misconceptions can be difficult, especially when guests are emotionally invested in...

This article analyses the relationship between impostor phenomenon and motivation in academic women. These highly successful academics often express feelings of self-doubt, lack of belongingness, and incompetence, ideas echoed within motivation literature. This project establishes IP prevalence within 1,326 self-identified academic women and examin...

This study assesses the effect of popular media consumption, as a function of education level, on the public’s opinions about nuclear power. Opinions concerning ten statements about nuclear power were collected before and after participants read a news article in support of or in opposition to nuclear power. The purpose of the study was to determin...

Stereotype threat theory (STT) presents a potential explanation for differences in achievement in math and science for women. Specifically, STT postulates that the perceived risk of confirming a negative stereotype about an individual’s identity group acts as a psychological burden that negatively impacts performance. This study is the third in a s...

This study examined the relationship between impostor phenomenon (IP) and motivation in academic women. While ubiquitous within academia, impostor phenomenon tends to be most severe and prevalent in women. These highly successful academics often express feelings of self-doubt, lack of belongingness, being lucky, and lacking real competence; ideas e...

Conceptual change can be a challenging process, particularly in science education where many of the concepts are complex, controversial, or counter-intuitive. Yet, conceptual change is fundamental to science learning, which suggests science educators and science education researchers need models to effectively address and investigate conceptual cha...

Conceptual change (CC) occurs when learners move from a misconception to a scientifically accepted conception (Heddy et al., 2017). Many researchers agree that deep cognitive engagement is integral to facilitating conceptual change (Sinatra, 2005). Although conceptual change has been explored in great depth, a valid and reliable instrument to asses...

Purpose Purpose – Most international marketing studies, taking a sociological position, assume homogeneity within and heterogeneity between cultures. Taking a psychological position and based on the Mindscape Theory, this paper attempts to support the hypothesis that there is intra-cultural and intra-market heterogeneity. Design/methodology/appro...

Stereotype threat theory (STT) offers one explanation for achievement differences in math and science for both women and minority students. Specifically, STT posits that the perceived risk of confirming a negative stereotype about an individual’s identity group acts as a psychological burden that negatively impacts performance. This study examined...

No research to date has examined whether variability in mathematics strategy use is linked to higher performance or whether there are long-term benefits to students who use a broad variety of strategies. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between strategy variability and student competency in mathematics. Longitudinal dat...

The present study used the Cognitive Reconstruction of Knowledge Model (CRKM) model of conceptual change as a framework for developing and testing how key cognitive, motivational, and emotional variables are linked to conceptual change in physics. This study extends an earlier study developed by Taasoobshirazi and Sinatra (J Res Sci Teach 48:901–91...

The Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) model has shown to be a useful tool to generate learning and engagement in science. We investigated the effectiveness of TTES for facilitating transformative experience (TE), learning, the development of topic interest and transfer of course concepts to other courses employing a quasi-exp...

We surveyed 139 (88 traditional, 51 nontraditional) students on various motivational measures of self-determination, attribution, and expectancy-value to (a) investigate motivational differences by student status and (b) identify the motivational variables that best predict academic achievement by student status. Results of a multivariate analysis...

The Physics Metacognition Inventory was developed to measure physics students’ metacognition for problem solving. In one of our earlier studies, an exploratory factor analysis provided evidence of preliminary construct validity, revealing six components of students’ metacognition when solving physics problems including knowledge of cognition, plann...

Previous studies have shown that several key variables influence student achievement in geometry, but no research has been conducted to determine how these variables interact. A model of achievement in geometry was tested on a sample of 102 high school students. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variable...

We tested a theoretical model of college students’ ratings of messengers of resilience and models of resilience, students’ own perceived resilience, regulatory strategy use, and achievement. A total of 116 undergraduates participated in this study. The results of a path analysis indicated that ratings of models of resilience had a direct effect on...

journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third part...

A model of expertise in physics problem solving was tested on undergraduate science, physics, and engineering majors enrolled in an introductory-level physics course. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variables linked to expertise in physics problem solving including motivation, metacognitive planning, s...

The 24-item Physics Metacognition Inventory was developed to measure physics students' metacognition for problem solving. Items were classified into eight subcomponents subsumed under two broader components: knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. The students' scores on the inventory were found to be reliable and related to students' p...

An assessment-oriented design-based research model was applied to existing inquiry- oriented multimedia programs in astronomy, biology, and ecology. Building on emerging situative theories of assessment, the model extends prevailing views of formative assessment for learning by embedding ‘‘discursive’’ formative assessment more directly into the cu...

As an example of design-based research, this study refined an assessment strategy for simultaneously enhancing inquiry-based learning and supporting achievement on conventional assessment measures. Astronomy Village®:Investigating the Universe™ is a software program designed to engage secondary science students in authentic and inquiry-based learni...

This study examined the relationship among cognitive and motivational variables impacting college students’ willingness to take mitigative action to reduce the impacts of human-induced climate change. One hundred and forty college students were asked to read a persuasive text about human-induced climate change and were pre and post tested on their...

Stereotype threat (ST), which involves confirming a negative stereotype about one's group, is a factor thought to contribute to the gender gap in science achievement and participation. This study involved a quasi-experiment in which 312 US high school physics students were randomly assigned, via their classroom cluster, to one of three ST condition...

From the perspective of social cognitive theory, the motivation of students to learn science in college courses was examined. The students—367 science majors and 313 nonscience majors—responded to the Science Motivation Questionnaire II, which assessed five motivation components: intrinsic motivation, self-determination, self-efficacy, career motiv...

A model of conceptual change in physics was tested on introductory-level, college physics students. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variables linked to conceptual change in physics including an approach goal orientation, need for cognition, motivation, and course grade. Conceptual change in physics was...

One hundred and seventy-eight second grade students from two states (Georgia and Massachusetts) participated in an experiment in which they were randomly assigned to either (1) a computer program designed to increase fluency in addition and subtraction, (2) a program designed to improve cognitive strategy use for addition and subtraction, (3) a pro...

A model of expertise in chemistry problem solving was tested on undergraduate science majors enrolled in a chemistry course. The model was based on Anderson's Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) theory. The model shows how conceptualization, self-efficacy, and strategy interact and contribute to the successful solution of quantitative, wel...

A model of expertise in physics was tested on a sample of 374 college students in 2 different level physics courses. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesized relationships among variables linked to expert performance in physics including strategy use, pictorial representation, categorization skills, and motivation, and these varia...

This study examined how 770 nonscience majors, enrolled in a core-curriculum science course, conceptualized their motivation to learn science. The students responded to the Science Motivation Questionnaire, a 30-item Likert-type instrument designed to provide science education researchers and science instructors with information about students' mot...

This paper reviews and critiques the existing research on a widely recommended instructional approach called context-based physics, which involves placing physics material within a real-life context in an attempt to improve student motivation, problem solving, and achievement. Described first are the problems that exist with traditional physics ins...

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach to research on gender differences in science that uses the work on expertise in science as a framework for understanding gender differences. Because gender differences in achievement and participation in the sciences are largest in physics, the focus of this review is on physics. The nature of...

In this paper we explore the relationship between learning gains, measured through pre‐assessment and post‐assessment, and engagement in scientific argumentation. In order to do so, this paper examines group discourse and individual learning during the implementation of NASA Classroom of the Future’s BioBLAST!® (BB) software program in a high schoo...

Gifted children are assumed to show better performance in all areas, but this is not the case for metacognition. In some cases gifted children show the expected advanced metacognitive performance but in other cases their metacognitive performance differs little from average children. By considering the development of gifted performance from the per...

This study details an innovative approach to coordinating and enhancing multiple levels of assessment and discursive feedback around an existing multi-media curricular environment called Astronomy Village ® . As part of a broader design-based research programme, the study analysed small group interactions in feedback activities across two design cy...

A theoretical model of nonscience majors' motivation to learn science was tested by surveying 369 students in a large-enrollment college science course that satisfies a core curriculum requirement. Based on a social-cognitive framework, motivation to learn science was conceptualized as having both cognitive and affective influences that foster scie...

Accountability-oriented reforms demand immediate and continual gains on achievement test, for all students, and without diminishing other outcomes or undermining instruction. This paper describes a framework for aligning classroom assessment and external testing with the aim of negotiating these seemingly contradictory goals. The framework varies t...

This study uses an existing astronomy software program to encourage inquiry-based learning and argumentation while also ensuring gains on conventional classroom assessments and high-stakes achievement tests. To supplement the software program, a curriculum and three levels of assessment--quizzes, exam, and test--were designed and administered to 11...

The present study was designed to evaluate gender differences in scientific problem solving strategies as a possible factor contributing to females' low performance and participation in science. Two groups, a group of high interest, mostly high performing males, and a group of low interest, low performing females, were formed and studied within the...