Active teaching to manage course difficulty and learning motivation

Abstract

Given the recent reported common occurrence of mediocre or substandard academic performance by students in colleges and universities, it has become essential to identify pedagogical factors that might lessen or reverse this trend. Kolb’s experiential learning, Pintrich’s student learning motivation, and cognitive load theories were used as a framework to assess active teaching moderation of the effects of course difficulty on course performance and learning motivation. Hierarchical ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to analyse the data. Research subjects were recruited from a medium-sized historically Black college and university (HBCU) students enrolled in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and Business (i.e. management, economics, or accounting) classes. Active teaching was a positive predictor of course grade and learning motivation. Course difficulty was a negative predictor of course grade. Interaction analysis revealed that increases in active teaching reduced (i.e. moderated) the negative relationship between course difficulty on both course grade and learning motivation. Overall, the findings suggest that student learning outcomes are certainly a function of pedagogy (e.g. active teaching), psychological/affective (e.g. learning motivation), and learning content complexity. Active teaching environments should (1) address both cognitive load and emotional responses attributed to difficult coursework, and (2) provide efficacy building opportunities during instructional delivery.

Keywords:

• Active teaching
• cognitive load
• course difficulty
• experiential learning
• learning motivation
• simple slope