{"id":198,"date":"2022-11-22T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/teaching-innovation\/?p=198"},"modified":"2023-01-17T14:41:31","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T19:41:31","slug":"challenges-ball-state-learners-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bsu.edu\/teaching-innovation\/2022\/11\/22\/challenges-ball-state-learners-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges Ball State Learners Face"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Learn more about who Ball State students are, the challenges they face in their academic and personal lives, and how this can impact your teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every Fall and Spring, Ball State deploys a survey to students (online and in-person) through institution-wide Canvas announcements. This survey, which consists of about 40 questions, is designed to evaluate the student experience at Ball State. On average, about 2,000 students respond to the survey every semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this post, I will share insights from one portion of the student experience survey: a series of questions asking students about the challenges they face in their academic and personal lives. These questions ask students to self-evaluate their own difficulties in various areas\u2014such as work, healthcare, and family responsibilities\u2014on the following scale: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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No Difficulties <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Minor Difficulties <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Moderate Difficulties <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Serious Difficulties <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Does Not Apply <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
I will specifically focus on students who answered Moderate or Serious Difficulties, as these are the students who are significantly impacted by the challenges they face. All data discussed in this post is combined from the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 surveys, with a total of 4,266 responses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My hope is that this analysis will help you gain a better picture of your students, as well as build empathy for them and develop strategies to help them with the challenges they face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Common Challenges Learners Face<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The biggest challenge learners face is staying motivated: 74% of Ball State students report motivation problems while 45% report moderate to serious motivation problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a close second are mental health concerns, with 68% of students facing mental or emotional health problems and 42% facing moderate to serious issues with mental health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Issues balancing work responsibilities with school come in third, with 57% of students facing these issues and 30% to a moderate or serious degree. This is to be expected, as 51% of Ball State students work at least 20 hours a week, and 25% work 40 or more hours a week outside of school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Financial hardship is the next most common challenge, with 55% of students facing some financial hardship and 28% facing moderate to serious hardship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These challenges, as well as learner preferences, are presented in the infographic below.<\/p>\n\n\n
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Relationships Between Different Challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
While the data about common challenges is important, it\u2019s worth noting that a significant portion of students are facing any challenge. Even the least common challenge \u2013 childcare \u2013 impacted 225 respondents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s why I dug deeper into the data to examine how certain challenges are related to each other. Which challenges are more likely to occur together? What can that tell us about our students\u2019 lives? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Below are some insights regarding the relationships between challenges. The percentages below are the difference between the \u201cbaseline\u201d rate of a challenge and the rate when a learner also faces another challenge. For example, if 20 out of 100 students face financial hardship, but 40 out of 100 students face financial hardship while facing healthcare challenges, that would be a 100% increase (2x as likely). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Financial difficulties come with more challenges.<\/strong> For students facing financial hardship, all <\/em>other challenges except mental health and motivation are more common than average. This includes food insecurity (94% more likely), affordability of materials (64%), technology access (57%), housing (47%), transportation (38%), and healthcare (36%). <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Access issues are closely related. <\/strong>Students who have difficulty accessing reliable internet are almost 6x as likely to also not have access to learning devices such as laptops. They are almost 3x as likely to not have access to a dedicated learning space. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Motivation problems are less likely to be associated with other challenges.<\/strong> Students facing motivation problems are less<\/em> likely to face other challenges than average. The only exceptions are mental health problems and social justice issues, both of which are more likely than average to co-occur with motivation problems. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Affordable materials are a social justice issue.<\/strong> While students who face challenges with affordability of learning materials are more likely than average to be facing financial hardships (64%), they\u2019re even more likely to be facing social justice issues (67%). <\/li>\n\n\n\n
All challenges are social justice issues.<\/strong> Only one challenge was more likely to co-occur with every single other challenge: social justice issues. Students who are facing social justice issues are more likely than average to be facing other issues, with the most likely challenges being housing (167% more likely) and healthcare (153% more likely).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Teaching Implications<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How can this data about the challenges learners face inform our teaching practices at Ball State? Here are a few points I think are important to note: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Empathy is critical.<\/strong> Your learners often face many challenges outside your classroom. When they aren\u2019t on top of their game, it\u2019s not about you as the teacher. Having empathy for them and their lives can go a long way towards cultivating a learning community based on kindness and care. Learn more about compassion and flexibility in course design.<\/a> <\/li>\n\n\n\n
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