5. Explain undergraduate student engagement based on cognitive style gap, student
 stress, student motivation and selected student demographic variables.

 Assumptions

 Basic assumptions of this study were as follows:

* Student engagement is desired by faculty members in colleges of agriculture and
 life sciences.

* Faculty members teach in their preferred cognitive style.

* Problem solving learning exists in the undergraduate classroom.

 Limitations

 Conclusions and implications derived from this study were subject to the

following limitations. Undergraduate courses are self-selected groups with students

having individual differences prior to data collection. It was anticipated that group

differences existed between classes with regard to mean scores and demographic

variables. Therefore, data were limited to this population of faculty members teaching

undergraduate courses in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University

of Florida. Applications of the results of this study to other college classrooms were

limited to the degree of similarity they have with courses used in this study.

 The researcher worked with the conditions allowed by the faculty member to

collect data from their course. All instruments were administered in the same manner, but

some students completed instruments in class and other students completed instruments

outside of class. As the faculty member made choices regarding students' completion of

the instrument, method of completion was confounded with the faculty member and

therefore provided no way to conclude there was a method of completion effect on

instrument scores. Even if courses were compared, self-selected courses have preexisting

differences with no way to statistically determine causality of these differences.