Sam Van Horne

Facilitating adoption of an interactive e-textbook among university students in a large, introductory biology course

E-textbooks are more prevalent in college courses, but much recent research still shows that students prefer paper textbooks and have difficulty regulating their learning with digital course materials. Still, college instructors—especially in lower-division STEM courses—often adopt digital course materials with e-textbooks that include a variety of metacognitive supports that students may not use. The purpose of this study was to test whether an intervention that drew upon the principles of the Technology Acceptance Model could facilitate better adoption of an interactive e-textbook in a large, introductory biology course. Participants included 239 undergraduate students from laboratory sections that were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. The treatment group viewed a video detailing the most beneficial ways to interact with an e-textbook. A pre- and post-test were administered to the participants in both groups. The treatment group had higher overall satisfaction, on average, with the e-textbook than the control group but did not report using the interactive tools more often. The implications for instruction with digital course materials are discussed.

Facilitating Student Success in Introductory Chemistry with Feedback in an Online Platform

Instructional technologists and faculty in post-secondary institutions have increasingly adopted learning analytics interventions such as dashboards that provide real-time feedback to students to support student’ ability to regulate their learning. But analyses of the effectiveness of such interventions can be confounded by measures of students’ prior learning as well as their baseline level of self-regulated learning. For this research study, we sought to examine whether the frequency of accessing a dashboard was associated with learning outcomes after matching subjects on confounding variables. And because prior research has suggested that measures of prior learning are associated with students’ likelihood to use learning analytics interventions, we sought to adequately control for learners’ likelihood to access the feedback by using a propensity score matching with a non-binary treatment variable. We administered the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire and also collected demographic information for a propensity score matching process. Users’ frequency of accessing the intervention was categorized as High, Moderate, or Low/No usage. After matching users on characteristics associated with dashboard usage (gender, high school GPA, and the “Test Anxiety” and “Self Efficacy” factors) we found that both the “High” and “Moderate” users achieved significantly higher course grades than the “Low/No” users. The results suggest learners benefited from regularly accessing the feedback, but extreme amounts of usage were not necessary to achieve a positive effect. We discuss the implications for recommending how students use learning analytics interventions without excessively accessing feedback.

Large Lecture Transformation: Improving Student Engagement and Performance through in-class Practice in an Electrical Circuits Course

Post-secondary educators are increasingly experimenting with the possibility of blending or replacing traditional lecture-based instruction with student-centered instruction. Although some studies have been completed, much remains to be learned about when and why student-centered instruction works and the effectiveness of specific approaches. The goal of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a student-centered instructional approach on students’ engagement and achievement in a transformed electrical circuits course compared to the same course taught in a traditional lecture-based format. Two hundred and forty-three students participated in the study. Three surveys were administered during the semester, and participants’ demographic information, prior learning outcomes, and course outcomes were collected after the semester was over. The results indicated that students in the student-centered section were significantly more engaged and achieved higher learning outcomes than students in the lecture-based section. The specific instructional strategies and technologies used in the student-centered section are discussed.

Faculty Adoption of Active Learning Classrooms.

Although post-secondary educational institutions are incorporating more active learning classrooms (ALCs) that support collaborative learning, researchers have less often examined the cultural obstacles to adoption of those environments. In this qualitative research study, we adopted the conceptual framework of activity theory to examine the entire system of mediating factors that influence the adoption of ALCs by academic units. We examined why faculty members chose to adopt such learning environments at a large university in the Midwest. In addition, we interviewed department heads to learn about the institutional factors that promoted or hindered adoption of these learning environments. We found that, while faculty members often believed that the transition had improved their classes, the department heads were unaware of the student learning outcomes and did not have enough information to promote wider adoption of these learning environments. Thus, innovations at the course level were not often supported to enact curricular change. Implications for promoting successful adoption of ALCs are discussed.