Structure Building Predicts Grades in College Psychology and Biology

Abstract

Knowing what skills underlie college success can allow students, teachers, and universities to identify and to help at-risk students. One skill that may underlie success across a variety of subject areas is structure building, the ability to create mental representations of narratives (Gernsbacher, Varner, & Faust, 1990). We tested if individual differences in structure-building ability predicted success in two college classes: introductory to psychology and introductory biology. In both cases, structure building predicted success. This effect was robust, with structure building explaining variance in course grades even after accounting for high school GPA and SAT scores (in the psychology course) or a measure of domain knowledge (in the biology course). The results support the claim that structure building is an important individual difference, one that is associated with learning in different domains.

Assessing structure building in college classrooms at scale

“…In our sample of college students, beta Coach predicts as much variance in final exam performance as the text MMCB (15%). These results are similar to those of Arnold et al (), who demonstrated that the MMCB significantly predicted final course grades in introductory biology and psychology courses. Our results also complement the previous work by Maki and Maki () who found that the MMCB predicted performance on an average of four course examinations in introductory psychology courses after controlling for prior knowledge and instructor variance.…”

“…In two prior studies, structure building ability predicted final course grades (Arnold et al, ) and average exam performance (Maki & Maki, ). To add to this existing literature, we examined whether structure building ability would predict comprehensive final exam scores.…”

“…Despite the variation in contexts, beta Coach still predicted student performance on a comprehensive final exam which was consistent across all course sections. Because of this, we believe our examination of beta Coach is an important contribution to the existing body of literature that indicate structure building ability is an important, measurable variable related to performance for college students (Arnold et al, ; Callender & McDaniel, ; Maki et al, ; Maki & Maki, ; Martin et al, ; McDaniel et al, ; McDaniel, Howard, & Einstein, ).…”

“…Findings from classroom‐based studies of structure building also support the conclusion that structure building is related to student learning outcomes. Among students enrolled in introductory psychology and biology courses, structure building ability measured at the beginning of the academic term predicted future final grades (Arnold, Daniel, Jensen, McDaniel, & Marsh, ). For psychology and biology students, the MMCB was a strong predictor of final course grades even after accounting for prior knowledge and achievement ( β = .21 and β = .20, respectively).…”

APA-Style Citations Can Create a Roadblock to Textbook Comprehension for Less Skilled Readers

“…MMCB. Students' general structure building ability of text was measured using the written version of the MMCB (also see Arnold et al, 2016;Bui & McDaniel, 2015;Callender & McDaniel, 2007;Martin et al, 2016 for studies using the written version of the MMCB). We chose the MMCB because it is a measure of general comprehension skill of written materials.…”