CUPID’s research agenda is aimed to better understand our students and their learning processes, as well as our own teaching practices, so that we can improve teaching and learning outcomes. Our research centers on five main questions:
- Who are our students? What are their backgrounds, motivations for taking courses on infants and toddlers, and existing knowledge, attitudes, and skills regarding infant/toddler development, care, and education?
- What and how are we teaching? What characterizes infant/toddler-focused courses in terms of instructor background, course learning objectives, pedagogical approaches, content, and structure?
- What do students learn? What changes, over an academic term, do we see in students’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills for working with infants and toddlers?
- What supports and hinders student learning? How does change in students’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills vary by the characteristics of students, instructors, and courses?
- How can we better prepare the future infant/toddler workforce? What pedagogies result in the most student learning? Do certain pedagogies work best for particular students, or for particular content/competencies?
We address most of these questions by surveying our students, in many types of classes across institutions, using the same survey. We use the naturally occurring variation in students’ backgrounds, educational and career goals, and their work and educational experiences to understand what influences their learning. Each academic term, we collect survey data at the beginning and ends of the term so that we can examine changes in students’ knowledge, dispositions (e.g., attitudes, beliefs, and values), and skills. To protect our students’ confidentiality, their Across four years of data collection (academic years 14-15, 15-16, 17-18, and 18-19), more than XX students across XXuniversities have participated in these studies. Data collection is ongoing, and measures are expanding to cover a more full range of competencies.
