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Increasing Research Self-Efficacy Among Students in Professional Academic Programs

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Abstract

Gains in research self-efficacy for 60 Social Work and 75 Speech-Language Pathology students were compared. Our interest was to investigate whether students enrolled in both research and practice courses made greater gains in research self-efficacy over a semester, as compared to students enrolled in practice courses only. Findings indicated that Speech-Language Pathology students taking both research and practice courses showed the greatest gain. Examination of the Speech-Language Pathology curriculum suggested that when research courses were augmented with opportunities to apply research learning outside of class, greater gain in student confidence was achieved. We discuss implications for curricular development and interdisciplinary discourse on curriculum matters, and these implications reach beyond the two specific disciplines.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, Western Michigan University, USA

    Yvonne A. Unrau (Associate Professor)

  2. Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Illinois State University, USA

    Ann R. Beck (Professor)

Authors
  1. Yvonne A. Unrau
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  2. Ann R. Beck
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Correspondence to Ann R. Beck.

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Unrau, Y.A., Beck, A.R. Increasing Research Self-Efficacy Among Students in Professional Academic Programs. Innovative Higher Education 28, 187–204 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:IHIE.0000015107.51904.95

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:IHIE.0000015107.51904.95

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