Academic confidence and dyslexia at university

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

Section 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Academic confidence and dyslexia at university

I    Dyslexia

II   Academic Confidence

III  Academic Behavioural Confidence

IV  Location and Stance of the Study: Impact Statement

1.2  Research Design and Methodological Overview

I    Background: The preceding small-scale enquiry

II   Structure and Process; The espistemological position of the enquiry

III  Register

1.3  Research Importance

1.4  Research questions and hypotheses

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Section 2: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES - A review of selected literature

Introduction

2.1 Dyslexia

I     Dyslexia, whatever it is, is complicated

II    Theoretical standpoints of dyslexia

1. Dyslexia is a phonological processing disturbance

2. Dyslexia is attributable to visual disturbances

3. Dyslexia is a rapid auditory processing disturbance

4. Dyslexia results from a mildly dysfunctional cerebellum

5. Dyslexia is a manifestation of natural human neuro-diversity

6. Dyslexia is a multi-factorial information processing difference

III   Equitability in learning systems - accommodating dyslexia?

IV   Labels, categories, dilemmas of difference, inclusivity

V    Impact of the process of identification

VI   To identify or not to identify - is that the question?

VII  Measuring dyslexia - "How dyslexic am I?"

VIII Dyslexia - summary

2.2 Academic Confidence

I     Overview

II    Underpinning research perspectives:

1. An overview of Social Cognitive Theory

2. Self-efficacy in social cognitive theory and in learning

3. Dimensions of self-efficacy

4. Task/domain specificity

5. Mediating processes in learning (academic) self-efficacy

6 Agency

III   Social Cognitive Theory in education and learning

IV   Academic Behavioural Confidence (ABC)

1. Historical development of ABC

2. Recent research using the ABC Scale

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Section 3: RESEARCH DESIGN - Methodology and Methods

3.1 Research design overview

Design focus 

3.2 Research Participants - groups and subgroups

3.3 Data Collection

I     Objectives

II    Questionnaire design rationales

1. Demographic data

2. Quantitative data

Likert Scales

1 The Academic Behavioural Confidence Scale

2.1 Six psychometric scales

2.2 The Dyslexia Index (Dx) Profiler

3. Qualitative data

4. Questionnaire Pilot

3.4 Procedure

3.5 Data Reduction

3.6 Developing the Dyslexia Index Profiler

I    Background and Rationale

II   Establishing the Dyslexianess Continuum

III  Designing the Dx Profiler

IV  Validating the Dx Profiler using a small-scale enquiry

1. Rationale, methods and processes

2. Recruitment of participants

3. Process

4. Results and Outcomes

5. Discussion

6. Generating the Dyslexia Index

7. Concluding summary

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Section 4: RESULTS and ANALYSIS

4.1 Overview

I    Objectives

II   Analysing quantitative data - Rationales

1. Internal consistency (reliability) - Cronbach's ɑ

2. Effect sizes

3. Null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST); ANOVA

4. Dimension reduction

5. Multiple regression analysis

III  Analysing qualitative data - Rationales

4.2 Terminology

4.3 Results

I    Demographics

1. Distribution by gender

2. Distribution by domicile

3. Distribution by study level

II   How students with dyslexia learned of their dyslexia

III  Dyslexia Index

1. Internal reliability of the Dx Profiler - Dx20, Dx16 Scales

2. Dx Profiler distributions and basic statistics

3. Setting boundary values for Dx

IV  Academic Behavioural Confidence

1. Internal reliability of the ABC Scales

2. Difference in mean ABC values

4.4 Relating results to hypotheses

4.5 Further analysis: Dimension reduction

I    Overview - applying dimension reduction to the ABC Scale and the Dx

Profilers

1. Assumptions and preliminary work

2. Eigenvalue Monte Carlo Simulations

II   PCA on Academic Behavioural Confidence

III  PCA on Dyslexia Index

IV  Comparing ABC Factor means

4.6 Applying multiple regression analysis

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Section 5: DISCUSSION

5.1 Context of the enquiry

I    Summary overview

II   Challenges

5.2 Summary of the outcomes

I    Composition of the datapool

II   Prevalence of dyslexia in this current study

III  The relationship between dyslexia-ness and academic confidence

IV  Diagnosing dyslexia: does this impact significantly on academic

 confidence?

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Section 6: CONCLUDING COMMENTARIES AND REFLECTIONS

6.1 Summarizing the purpose of the research

6.2 Summarizing the research outcomes

6.3 Limitations of the research

I    Scale liimitations

II   Data collection, sampling and datapool limitations; measurement issues

6.4 Directions for future research

6.5 Concluding remarks

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Section 7: REFERENCES

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Section 8: APPENDICES

8.1 The Research Questionnaire

8.2 Ethics approval documentation