Informed Consent Form

Title of Research: Culturally Situated Self-Regulated Learning in Statistics in a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environment

Researcher: Yongchao Shi, Ph.D. candidate, Educational and Counseling Psychology Supervisor: Carl Frederiksen (tel: 514-398-3448); Krista Muis (tel: 514-398-3445)
My contact Information: Tel: 514-3984255 (office), 514-907-6290 (home); email: yongchao.shi@mail.mcgill.ca


Purpose of the research: Our purpose is to find how people from different cultural backgrounds meet their challenges in learning statistics in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. You will learn in pairs for about two hours to solve a statistics problem with help of a computer tutor. Your performance on the learning tasks will be recorded and compared to that from other participants who have a different cultural background in order to see differences and similarity in terms of perception, feelings, and strategies when all of you learn to solve the statistics problem. This research represents the core phase of the writing of my dissertation.

Benefits of participation: First, it will provide data that can help other students who have similar learning experiences by contributing to our research knowledge base. Second, you may use the tutor to update your statistics knowledge which is required in many research professions and academic fields. Third, your learning processes will be analyzed in detail so that you can get feedback on them at the end of the study. This information may be beneficial for you in helping you to meet the challenges of learning in academic environments. Finally, you will be paid for your valuable time of participation ($10/h).

Participation criteria: Each participant has to: (a) be a male undergraduate or graduate student in McGill or Concordia; (b) speak English fluently enough to pursue further studies; (c) have taken an elementary statistics course (e.g. you've know concepts such as standard deviation and T-test) and be interested in updating your knowledge about data analysis; (d) be a Chinese student or an Anglophone Canadian student. A Chinese student here refers to a participant who was born in Mainland China, mainly speaks Chinese at home, and has less than five years of learning experience outside China. An Anglo-Canadian student refers to a participant who were born in Canada or the U.S. , whose father or mother was born in Canada or the U.S., and who mainly speak English at home. Only male participants were selected in this study because at this stage of the research gender differences are not the focus and need to be controlled.

Confidentiality: Your participation is entirely voluntary and you can choose to withdraw from the study if you should decide that you do not wish to participate further. All individual data are strictly confidential. No participants’ names will be used or identified in subsequent reports.

Participation: The Research will be conducted in the Laboratory of Applied Cognitive Science Group in the Education Building of McGill University. You will be asked to read this form carefully before you sign this form.


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Consent: I have read the above information and I agree to participate in this study.

Signature: ________ Researcher’s signature: _______

Name: __________ Date: _____________