Implementation of the Peer-Led Team-Learning Instructional Model as a Stopgap Measure Improves Student Achievement for Students Opting Out of Laboratory

In entry-level university courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, students participating in associated laboratory sessions generally do better than those who have no related lab classes. This is a problem when, for various reasons, not enough lab sections can be offered for students and/or when students opt out of optional available lab courses. Faced with such a situation, this study evaluated the efficacy of the peer-led team-learning (PLTL) instructional model as a potential method for narrowing the achievement gap among undergraduate students electing not to enroll in an optional laboratory component of an introductory biology course. In peer-led workshops, small groups of students participated in solving problems and other activities that encouraged active learning. Students led by peer leaders attained significantly higher exam and final course grades in introductory biology than comparable students not participating in PLTL. Among the introductory biology students who opted not to enroll in the optional lab course, those who participated in PLTL averaged more than a letter grade higher than those who did not. This difference was statistically significant, and the PLTL workshops almost entirely closed the achievement gap in lecture exam and final grades for students who did not take the lab.     

A large-scale test of the relationship between procrastination and performance using learning analytics

Abstract

Many studies have found a relationship between students’ self-reported procrastination and their grades. Few studies have used learning analytic data as a behavioural measure of procrastination in order to predict performance, and there is no systematic research on how this relationship may differ across assessments or disciplines. In this study we analyse nine years’ worth of institutional electronic submission records, a total of 73,608 assignment submissions, to examine the relationship between submission time and grades across assignments, students, courses, and disciplines in higher education. A significant negative relationship was found overall, with students who submitted closer to the deadline obtaining lower grades, however the size of the relationship was negligible, accounting for less than 1% of the variance in grades. The relationship varied significantly depending on student, assignment, course and discipline.     

The Teaching of Adults

This study examines factors affecting students’ performances in an Introductory Sociology course over five semesters. Employing simple and ordered logit regression models, the author explains final grades by focusing on individual demographic and educational characteristics that students bring into the classroom. The results show that a student's overall grade point average (GPA) and the number of class days missed are significant predictors of performance in the Introductory Sociology course. Findings also identify minority status and grade level as contributory factors in explaining differences in superior performance in the course. Given that the results of this study offer evidence for commonly held assumptions about the positive association between regular class attendance and good grades, it is recommended that students be encouraged to attend more class sessions. The study also confirms that students who do well in an Introductory Sociology course generally do well in other subjects, as validated by their concurrent GPA.     

The effect of time‐on‐task on student grades and grade expectations

The effects of students’ attitudes on time devoted to a course (i.e. time‐on‐task), and the subsequent effects of this time‐on‐task on their performance in the course and their overall grade point average (GPA) were studied. Over a three‐year period, engineering students (N = 231) were surveyed in weeks one, three, seven (after midterms) and 10 (before finals) of a 10‐week quarter in six sophomore and junior engineering classes (eight different sections). Results of this study show that most students are optimistic about their future performance in a new course, regardless of their previous overall GPA. All students appear to devote a relatively high and equal amount of time‐on‐task during the first week of the term. The students who earned grades between ‘B+’ and ‘A’ appear to optimise this time by the third week. Students who earned a final grade of ‘B’ study similar to ‘A’ students before midterms but significantly increase their efforts after midterms while the ‘C’ students decrease their time devoted to the course. This study finds that ‘A’ students know they will earn an ‘A’ as long as they do the work. In contrast, ‘C’ students are resigned to the fact that they will earn a ‘C’ and, thus, devote far less time to a course. The ‘B’ students want better grades and will devote the most effort towards achieving these grades.     

An assessment of evaluation techniques in higher education: the experience of macroeconomics / La evaluación de las técnicas de evaluación en la enseñanza universitaria: la experiencia de macroeconomía

In this paper we will focus on the effects of continuous and final assessment on students’ final grades. In particular, the aim is to quantify the degree of improvement that the qualification criteria of written tasks entails, and to ascertain whether continuous assessment is crucial for the final grade of students who have passed the continuous assessment process. The results suggest that the way in which the final grade is calculated is crucial for the results. The findings indicate that continuous assessment activities (practical activities in class and submission of written papers) are more relevant for the final grade than the completion of tests throughout the course.     

Engagement with online self-tests as a predictor of student success

Online self-testing as part of the online learning environment (OLE) provides practice questions on key concepts with immediate feedback – in a ‘no-risk’ environment. OLE activity was analysed for 471 on-site and distance students enrolled in health science courses to determine total activity on the OLE and usage of online self-tests. The study also aimed to determine whether utilisation of self-tests differed by final grade, particularly between students who just pass (C grades and Restricted pass) and those who fail (D and E grades). Results indicated that on-site students were significantly more active on the OLE compared to distance students. However, these groups engaged similarly with self-tests and achieved a similar distribution of grades. A significant positive relationship was found between final grade achieved and percentage of self-tests attempted. This relationship was significant regardless of study status (on-site or distance), course studied or total activity logged. A more targeted analysis of C?+?R vs. D?+?E students showed that although these two groups were similar on overall usage of the OLE, C?+?R students utilised self-tests to a significantly greater extent. Recommendations from this study are that students (particularly those struggling to achieve academic success) should be directed towards online self-tests.     

Human physiology: Improving students' achievements through intelligent studyware

A studyware comprising a set of interconnected modules on human physiology has been developed and used to improve undergraduate students' achievements. Using the study modules, students can engage in active learning and enhance their spatial and problemsolving abilities, while the system monitors their responses and reacts accordingly. Examples from the Brain and Heart modules of theHuman Physiology studyware are presented. The results of the study showed that although students' final grades were correlated with their previous biology course grades, the scores of those students who used the optional computer laboratory sessions were enhanced over those who did not use the studyware.     

Introducing Students to Self‐assessment

This study describes the introduction of self‐assessment to third‐year education students as a strategy for improving learning. Students were required to self‐assess a literature review using the marking guide developed by the course lecturer. The results showed a good level of agreement between students and the teacher but with a tendency for more students to overestimate than underestimate their grades. Interviews with students indicated that those who over estimated their grades were less clear about the standard by which to judge their work and looked for more specific guidance on what the lecturer ‘wanted’ than students whose estimates were closer to the lecturer's. The former group also tended to include ‘effort’ as a factor in their judgement. Students who responded more positively to the self‐assessment exercise were also more positive about the value of having a marking guide given out with the assignment. The paper concludes with suggestions for improving the study and some advice to other teachers who are contemplating the introduction of self‐assessment.     

大学生选课与评教行为理性与非理性倾向

在大学的教学管理中,学生并不是简单的被动者、接受者,而是通过参与选课和评教,影响高校的课程质量。通过全国大样本的问卷调查和深入访谈发现:学生选课和评教时较多考虑教师口碑、投入、自己的收获、兴趣、就业等积极因素,但也有相当比例的学生赞同点名少、容易通过、作业简单、得分高等消极因素。学困生和没有读硕意愿的学生更多考虑消极因素,不同成绩段的学生行动策略也不同。在考虑消极因素时,学生也理性衡量了自己短期、显性的成本与收益,却可能损害长期、潜在的收益,导致非理性的后果。学生在选课与评教中的非理性行为正是引发课程"变水"的重要原因,必须完善相关制度设计,保障课程质量。     

‘… do that and I'll raise your grade’. Innovative module design and recursive feedback

In an attempt to ensure students had a positive experience in their first semester, and to encourage future effective use of tutors’ feedback comments, a post-1992 university used a module in the school of education to develop an innovative feedback process. The process involved four stages: a first submission of written work, written feedback on that work, viva on student understanding of feedback, and final submission of written work. Between the viva and final submission, students could choose to improve their work for a specified number of grade points. The innovation was met favourably by students, and overall grades were improved against the previous iteration of the module. The project showed promise for adaptation in other forms for use across the University, though some ideological issues around assessment remain unresolved. The matter of the innovation and institutional quality standards is discussed in detail.     

The impact of COVID-19 on A Level exams in England: Students as consumers

The recent global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created significant challenges for society, not least for education. England went into lockdown in March 2020; following this, A Level exams were cancelled and the Department for Education announced that results were to be determined by teacher-assessed grades. This paper draws upon research conducted during this time with A Level students. It is based on a total of 53 Skype interviews with students who had their A Level exams cancelled, most of whom had ambitions to start university in September 2020. A number of striking findings emerged from the study. Students were well-informed about the changes to the A Level exam assessment and the impact structural inequalities were likely to have on assessed grades. White students and those from independent fee-paying schools were consistently more satisfied with the measures put in place to assess their grades compared to students from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds. However, all students—regardless of their background—identified patterns of unfairness which were based on structural inequalities. We conclude that these findings point to students adopting some of the attributes of the ‘student as consumer’, not by concentrating on choices associated with free market economies such as ‘good value’, but rather by identifying more ethical ‘values’ within education.     

Study skills in anatomy and physiology: Is there a difference?

Many factors influence the way individual students study, including but not limited to: previous coursework, attitudes toward the class (motivation, intimidation, risk, etc.), metacognition, and work schedules. However, little of this research has involved medical students. The present article asks the question, “Do individual medical students study differently for different classes?” Study skills surveys were given to United States medical students at an allopathic medical school and an osteopathic medical school. Students were surveyed near the end of their first year gross anatomy course and again near the end of their first year physiology course. Survey items included Likert scale and open‐ended questions about study habits and basic demographic information. The survey responses were correlated with each student's final grade percentages in the courses. Analysis revealed that the four most common study habits were reviewing lecture notes, taking practice examinations, completing learning exercises, and making drawings and diagrams. The two surveys (anatomy and physiology) from each individual were also compared to see if students reported different study habits in anatomy versus physiology. A negative correlation was found between changing study habits between courses and final anatomy grade percentages. Additional analyses suggest that those students who do change their study habits between courses are increasing the number of study strategies that they attempt. This increase in the number of study strategies attempted may not allow the student to reach the same depth of understanding as their colleagues who utilize fewer strategies. Anat Sci Educ. © 2015 American Association of Anatomists.     

What changes,and for whom? A study of the impact of learning analytics-based process feedback in a large course

Recent developments in educational technologies have provided a viable solution to the challenges associated with scaling personalised feedback to students. However, there is currently little empirical evidence about the impact such scaled feedback has on student learning progress and study behaviour. This paper presents the findings of a study that looked at the impact of a learning analytics (LA)-based feedback system on students' self-regulated learning and academic achievement in a large, first-year undergraduate course. Using the COPES model of self-regulated learning (SRL), we analysed the learning operations of students, by way of log data from the learning management system and e-book, as well as the products of SRL, namely, performance on course assessments, from three years of course offerings. The latest course offering involved an intervention condition that made use of an educational technology to provide LA-based process feedback. Propensity score matching was employed to match a control group to the student cohort enrolled in the latest course offering, creating two equal-sized groups of students who received the feedback (the experimental group) and those who did not (the control group). Growth mixture modelling and mixed between-within ANOVA were also employed to identify differences in the patterns of online self-regulated learning operations over the course of the semester. The results showed that the experimental group showed significantly different patterns in their learning operations and performed better in terms of final grades. Moreover, there was no difference in the effect of feedback on final grades among students with different prior academic achievement scores, indicating that the LA-based feedback deployed in this course is able to support students’ learning, regardless of prior academic standing.     

Programming Pluralism: Using Learning Analytics to Detect Patterns in the Learning of Computer Programming

New high-frequency, automated data collection and analysis algorithms could offer new insights into complex learning processes, especially for tasks in which students have opportunities to generate unique open-ended artifacts such as computer programs. These approaches should be particularly useful because the need for scalable project-based and student-centered learning is growing considerably. In this article, we present studies focused on how students learn computer programming, based on data drawn from 154,000 code snapshots of computer programs under development by approximately 370 students enrolled in an introductory undergraduate programming course. We use methods from machine learning to discover patterns in the data and try to predict final exam grades. We begin with a set of exploratory experiments that use fully automated techniques to investigate how much students change their programming behavior throughout all assignments in the course. The results show that students’ change in programming patterns is only weakly predictive of course performance. We subsequently hone in on 1 single assignment, trying to map students’ learning process and trajectories and automatically identify productive and unproductive (sink) states within these trajectories. Results show that our process-based metric has better predictive power for final exams than the midterm grades. We conclude with recommendations about the use of such methods for assessment, real-time feedback, and course improvement.     

The impact of word processing on the preparation and submission of written essays in a tertiary course of study

This study investigated whether the use of word processing in the creation and submission of written essays by tertiary students, resulted in the achievement of higher grades compared with conventional methods. The study was conducted among 240 student teachers in the first year of a degree course and studying a pre-service unit in teacher education. Students' marks in an essay were gathered along with details of the submission method used; word processed, typed or hand-written. Initial statistical tests showed that students who used word processing as a method for essay submission scored significantly higher essay marks that students whose essays were typed or hand-written. Further tests, however, revealed than it was the level of revision carried out rather than the submission method that accounted for the differences in achieved scores.     

The influence of advice in a virtual learning environment

The influence of asynchronous discussion in a virtual learning environment, Blackboard, on subsequent coursework grades was examined with 166 psychology students to determine whether asking questions of the tutor online, and/or reading the questions and the given advice, influenced the grades on the report they were writing. A repeated‐measures quasiexperimental design was used, with and without Blackboard available, to control for confounding variables. The grades on the assignment with Blackboard available were significantly higher than those on the previous assignment (when Blackboard was unavailable). Students who never used Blackboard had significantly lower grades on the assignment than the students who had used it. There was a positive relationship between the number of messages read and the grade achieved on the assignment. Students who read the most discussion board posts wrote significantly better reports (up by 4%) than they had previously. No improvement in grades occurred for the people who read no posts at all. Both the students who asked questions and those who just read the questions and answers (‘lurkers’) ended up with significantly better grades than they had done before Blackboard was introduced.     

The relationship between student understanding,satisfaction and performance in an Australian engineering programme

It has often been suggested that actual or anticipated final grades may influence the ratings given by students in student experience surveys but few studies have been able to test this using actual grades. A study was carried out involving six courses over all four year levels of an undergraduate engineering programme, where students were asked to identify themselves in an experience survey by providing their student ID on the survey form. The aim of the study was to investigate a number of questions related to the readiness of students to identify themselves, and to examine any correlation between final examination grades, ratings of student satisfaction and the students’ perception of their level of understanding of material in their courses. Students were discovered to have a poor idea of how well they understand the concepts presented in their courses. This lack of an accurate idea of their own understanding is particularly important because ‘student understanding’ correlated to the ratings they gave to the course. Ratings were largely unaffected by final marks but students who gave their ID outperformed those who did not in end‐of‐year examinations. Higher year level students were more inclined to identify themselves and ratings tended to increase with year level.     

The influence of emotional intelligence on academic progress and achievement in UK university students

Previous research has found relationships between higher levels of emotional intelligence (EI) and academic success in both adolescents and adults. This study examines the relationship between overall EI and specific EI competencies in 135 undergraduate psychology students in the UK. EI was measured at the start of a psychology degree course using the Emotional Competence Inventory-University Edition (ECI-U II). Performance was assessed using retention statistics and students’ final average percentage mark (APM) at the end of their degree course. Results showed that there were no differences in overall EI or specific EI competencies in those students who graduated compared to those who failed to graduate. Whilst global EI did not significantly predict final APM, specific EI competencies (conscientiousness, adaptability, empathy, organisational awareness, and building bonds) significantly predicted APM after controlling for gender. Recommendations for the implementation of EI training in higher education institutions are considered.     

Using invention to change how students tackle problems

Invention activities challenge students to tackle problems that superficially appear unrelated to the course material but illustrate underlying fundamental concepts that are fundamental to material that will be presented. During our invention activities in a first-year biology class, students were presented with problems that are parallel to those that living cells must solve, in weekly sessions over a 13-wk term. We compared students who participated in the invention activities sessions with students who participated in sessions of structured problem solving and with students who did not participate in either activity. When faced with developing a solution to a challenging and unfamiliar biology problem, invention activity students were much quicker to engage with the problem and routinely provided multiple reasonable hypotheses. In contrast the other students were significantly slower in beginning to work on the problem and routinely produced relatively few ideas. We suggest that the invention activities develop a highly valuable skill that operates at the initial stages of problem solving.     

A comparison of electronic and paper-based assignment submission and feedback

This paper presents the results of a study evaluating student perceptions of online assignment submission. 47 students submitted assignments and received feedback via features within the Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard™. The students then completed questionnaires comparing their experience of online submission and feedback with traditional methods.
Results indicated that 88% of students reported a time saving and many reported financial benefits using online submission. 93% of students preferred having their feedback available online rather than printed and handed to them. Overall, students preferred online assignment management to postal or physical hand-in. The main disadvantage of electronic submission appeared to be student distrust of the receipt system.
The use of online assignment submission and management is recommended for use in Higher Education establishments where students may be remote. It is most suitable for assignments that do not require inclusion of many images.