The Intrapersonal Competency Cultivation Research (ICCR) team at the University of Texas Arlington collaboratively researches the effectiveness of a variety of in- and out-of-classroom intrapersonal competency cultivation strategies (ICCS) and their impact on cumulative GPA, term-to-term persistence, time-to-degree, and career and/or graduate school readiness. Using multiple methods of inquiry, such as pre-and post- intrapersonal competency inventories, experience samplings, behavioral tasks, engagement analytics, and first-person reflections, the ICCR team disaggregates data by identities and their intersections to ascertain whether specific ICCS are working well for whom and how so that inequities of student learning and development outcomes can be avoided altogether.
Goals
Leveraging a large body of research previously published by the National Academies of Sciences (2017; 2018) and the Institute of Educational Sciences (2016), we aim to do the following:
- Test multiple methods of how malleable intrapersonal competencies can be cultivated and for whom and under what types of conditions and contexts.
- Research the relationship of these intrapersonal competencies with desired institutional performance metrics such as term-to-term persistence, time-to-degree, and closing of equity gaps while accounting for variations in culture and context.
- Research the relationship of these intrapersonal competencies with desired career readiness and graduate school readiness skills while accounting for variations in culture and context.
- Integrate first-person narrative via natural language processing analytics into learning analytics in order to better understand what may be missing from existing intrapersonal competency quantitative measures and better inform context and culture.
- Disseminate research findings, successful intrapersonal competency cultivation strategies (ICCS) as well as corresponding assessment tools and analysis methodology, and inform relevant professional development for faculty and staff involved in cultivating malleable intrapersonal competencies to close equity gaps and improve career readiness.