Learner Attributes & Thinking About Our Student Focus Groups

"Instead of looking at the attributes of learners who eventually drop out to determine how to help learners sustain motivation and meet learning goals, discovering the attributes of successful learners can help us understand factors that contribute to motivation and persistence. Attributes that successful learners have include a high level of self-confidence and self-efficacy, and an internal locus of control."

This quotation from a book I'm reading with a few other Quality Matters Coordinators called "Effective Online Teaching", by Tina Stavredes, recalled for me our recent FLC conversation about our upcoming Student Focus Groups. I think it will be important to hear from students who struggle with online learning as well as from those who are more successful.

Self-confidence: "individuals' belief in themselves and their ability to succeed in general"

Here's an interesting and brief post from Cengage "Three Factors that Boost College Students' Confidence"

Self-efficacy: "person's belief that he or she can succeed at a specific task or range of tasks in a given domain"

Here's a good scholarly article called "Academic Self-Efficacy and First-Year College Student Performance and Adjustment"

Locus of Control: "beliefs about what determines...successes or failures in life"

Here's a Khan Academy video called "Locus of control, learned helplessness, and the tyranny of choice" (not a fan of animal research, btw)

So, what kinds of questions might draw out information about our focus group participants' self-confidence, self-efficacy, and locus of control?