Exploring student perceptions of their learning adaptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: With the shelter-in-place orders implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, learning experiences abruptly changed from on campus to wholly online. This qualitative study explores the perceptions and attitudes of students as they adapted their study space, study time, and approach to learning. METHODS: One hundred five students enrolled in a doctor of chiropractic program were invited to participate in a survey to understand how shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic influenced their approach to learning. Fifty-two of 105 (49.5%) students completed the survey. The survey asked students to select their primary study strategy from a list of options and then prompted students to explain how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced their study space, use of technology, study time, and metacognitive cycle of planning, monitoring, and evaluating their approach to learning. A Thematic analysis of the participants' responses was performed. RESULTS: Nearly all study participants described a challenge in adapting their study space, study time, or approach to learning. Respondents reported that the use of technology did not change because assessments and resources were electronic before the pandemic. Respondents who selected high-impact study strategies such as self-quizzing or who demonstrated evidence of well-developed metacognition described a positive approach to learning more frequently than did respondents who selected low-impact study strategies such as repeated reading or who did not show evidence of metacognitive development. CONCLUSION: This study presents student perceptions related to promoting and developing self-regulated learning skills. Educators can use this information to understand the adaptations to changes in learning experiences that may promote successful learning.

Patterns of responding on a balloon analogue task reveal individual differences in overall risk-taking: choice between guaranteed and uncertain cash.

We explored the utility of analyzing within- and between-balloon response patterns on a balloon analogue task (BAT) in relation to overall risk scores, and to a choice between a small guaranteed cash reward and an uncertain reward of the same expected value. Young adults (n = 61) played a BAT, and then were offered a choice between $5 in cash and betting to win $0 to $15. Between groups, pumping was differentially influenced by explosions and by the number of successive unexploded balloons, with risk takers responding increasingly on successive balloons after an explosion. Within-balloons, risk takers showed a characteristic pattern of constant high rate, while non-risk takers showed a characteristic variable lower rate. Overall, results show that the higher number of pumps and explosions that characterize risk takers at a molar level, result from particular forms of adaptation to the positive and negative outcomes of choices seen at a molecular level.