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[Phys-L] Re: Research on Student Response Systems



By the way, two well-known "meta-studies" done by non-developers that
immediately come to mind are Dick Hake's 6000 student comparison(4) of
passive and active engagement methods and Jeff Saul's dissertation(5),
where he looked at secondary implementations of Dickinson's Workshop
Physics, the Washington Tutorials, and Minnesota's Group Problem
Solving and Problem Solving Labs.

Bob Beichner

The Hake paper illustrates most of the pitfalls of such attempts, however.
There are really no controls here since the data are independently
reported. Classifications of 'traditional' or 'interactive' are somewhat
arbitrary with some questionable assignments. The assessment tool is
primarily the FCI and there has been a lot of past discussion about the
validity of that--in terms of dealing with a very narrow subset of physics,
being 'taught to' by those knowing it will be the assessment tool for their
techniques, etc. It is also where the lack of controls shows up--amount of
time and emphasis spent on the topic for example. In the end, this
collection of data (by an avowed advocate of interactive engagement
styles) points out how difficult it is to do meta-research in the
educational field (just research for that matter). Even by the standards
of psychological or sociological studies, most projects are lacking--mostly
because of the inherent difficulties. All of which is simply to say that
studies that proclaim this or that as the best thing since peanut butter,
or report some statistical measure taken out to 4 significant figures,
should be viewed with a little skepticism. When I start seeing students
arrive at college who have gone through these 'new pedagogy' courses and
actually know some basic physics, then I'll get more excited about the
whole thing. Until then, as suggested earlier, I'll use my own experience
and common sense and incorporate those new techniques and tools that I deem
useful and fit best with my style.

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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