Is More Activity Always Better? A Department‐Wide Study of Relationships Between Classroom Practices and Student Performance

Extensive research into science education has established that active learning practices positively impact student learning1. From these findings, we can now move forward to explore how to best design active classroom practices, and assess the most effective use of instructional time. To address these issues on a large scale within biology, we investigated the relationships between specific classroom practices and student learning in a biology department‐wide study at a large research university in the Pacific Northwest. For 31 different biology course sections ranging from freshman to senior year, and on topics from molecular biology and biochemistry to ecology and physiology, we collected classroom activity and diagnostic test data. Classroom observations captured the student and instructor behavior using the validated tool COPUS2; the diagnostic assessments were multiple‐choice pre‐ and post‐tests aligned to each course's content, consisting largely of validated questions from the concept inventory literature. Our observational data analysis showed a wide variety of instructor practices across the department, consistent with other large‐scale characterizations, which allow for clustering this multidimensional classroom data into broader instructional styles3,4. Notably, students in “Collaborative” classrooms significantly outperform students in “Peer Instruction” and “Lecture” styles, though there is no difference between the performance in the two latter styles. More finely‐grained, the amount of class time spent on clicker questions or worksheets are each significant and positive predictors of student performance. Interestingly, we see a negative relationship between unstructured group discussions (using neither clicker nor worksheets) and performance, highlighting the need for targeted approaches to engage students in productive active learning. Thus, building on current research that describes large‐scale teaching practices, we can now quantitatively link program‐wide COPUS observational data with student outcomes. The results of this work describe a platform by which others might evaluate learning and classroom practices, inform future directions for instructor development, and provide further insight into the types of classroom activities that have the greatest impact on student learning.

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