标题：Investigating Student Engagement in First-Year Biology Education: A Comparison of Major and Non-Major Perception of Engagement Across Different Active Learning Activities
期刊名称：Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
电子版ISSN：1918-2902
出版年度：2019
卷号：10
期号：1
页码：1-22
DOI：10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2019.1.7993
出版社：Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
摘要：Educational techniques that improve student engagement have repeatedly been shown to improve performance at the class level at many institutions and in multiple disciplines. However, knowledge of engagement in individual activities in large first-year classes, where there may be several sub-populations of students in different programs reflecting varied interests, is limited. In this study, we examined two large, lecture-based, introductory first-year biology classes to determine whether there were any relationships between specific learning activities and student engagement and performance, both at the class level and as broken down by program of study. Surveys were used to quantify the level of student engagement through four activities: (a) student response systems (clickers), (b) in-class discussions and activities, (c) lab and seminar activities, and (d) interdisciplinary learning. Engagement scores were then compared to students’ final grades. Students in all majors who reported higher levels of participation in most activities studied also reported feeling more engaged overall and achieved higher grades than their less-engaged peers; however, students in non-biology majors demonstrated notably weaker relationships between their engagement and performance in biology courses, where such relationships existed at all. In this paper, we discuss the learning activities which are associated with the greatest performance increases in both biology and non-biology majors and suggest how these results may be used to inform instructional techniques to benefit all students, regardless of major, in future course offerings.
其他关键词：engagement, learning, first-year, large class, biology
