Written justifications to multiple-choice concept questions during active learning in class

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, instructors of large, introductory STEM courses are having students actively engage during class by answering multiple-choice concept questions individually and in groups. This study investigates the use of a technology-based tool that allows students to answer such questions during class. The tool also allows the instructor to prompt students to provide written responses to justify the selection of the multiple-choice answer that they have chosen. We hypothesize that prompting students to explain and elaborate on their answer choices leads to greater focus and use of normative scientific reasoning processes, and will allow them to answer questions correctly more often. The study contains two parts. First, a crossover quasi-experimental design is employed to determine the influence of asking students to individually provide written explanations (treatment condition) of their answer choices to 39 concept questions as compared to students who do not. Second, we analyze a subset of the questions to see whether students identify the salient concepts and use appropriate reasoning in their explanations. Results show that soliciting written explanations can have a significant influence on answer choice and, when it does, that influence is usually positive. However, students are not always able to articulate the correct reason for their answer.

KEYWORDS:

• Conceptual learning
• written explanation
• clicker questions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Milo D. Koretsky is a professor in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, all in chemical engineering. He is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher-level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. His research interests particularly focus on what prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals.

Bill J. Brooks is a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and his Ph.D. from Oregon State University, both in chemical engineering. His Ph.D. research involved the use of written explanations to concept questions to investigate technology mediated active learning in the undergraduate chemical engineering classroom. He is interested in using technology to enhance educational practices in promoting conceptual understanding. He is the primary programmer of the Concept Warehouse and his current focus is on its continued development, specifically creating and integrating Interactive Virtual Labs.

Adam Z. Higgins is an associate professor in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. degree in Bioengineering and his BA in International Studies from Oregon State University and his Ph.D.in Bioengineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Research in the Higgins laboratory fits within the broad theme of biomedical process engineering, with a particular emphasis on processes that involve bio-transport phenomena.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation’s Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement Program [grant number NSF 1023099]. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.