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Classroom research has demonstrated the capacity for significantly influencing student learning by engaging students in evaluation of previously submitted work as an intentional priming exercise for learning; we call this experience Learning by Evaluating (LbE). Expanding on current LbE research, we set forth to investigate the impact on student learning by intentionally differing the quality of examples evaluated by the students using adaptive comparative judgement. In this research, university design students (N = 468 students) were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups; while each group evaluated previously collected student work as an LbE priming activity, the work evaluated by each group differed in quality. Using a three-group experimental design, one group of students only evaluated high quality examples, the second only evaluated low quality examples, and the third group of students evaluated a set of mixed-quality examples of the assignment they were about to work on. Following these LbE priming evaluations, students completed the assigned work and then their projects were evaluated to determine if there was a difference between student performance by treatment condition. Additional qualitative analysis was completed on student LbE rationales to explore similarities and differences in student cognitive judgments based on intervention grouping. No significant difference was found between the groups in terms of achievement, but several differences in group judgement approach were identified and future areas needing investigation were highlighted.
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Adaptivity or agency? Educational technology design for conceptual learning of materials science
Abstract As the use of computers in education increases, adaptive learning platforms are becoming more common. However, these adaptive systems are typically designed to support acquisition of declarative knowledge and/or procedural fluency but rarely address conceptual learning. In this work, we developed the Crystallography Adaptive Learning Module (CALM) for materials science to provide students a tool for individualized conceptual learning. We used a randomized quasi‐experimental design comparing two instructional designs with different levels of computer‐provided direction and student agency. Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of two different instructional designs; one design had students complete an individualized, adaptive path using the CALM (N = 80), and the other gave students the freedom to explore CALM's learning resources but with limited guidance (N = 85). Within these two designs, we also investigated students among different cumulative grade point average (GPA) groups. While there was no statistically significant difference in the measure of conceptual understanding between instructional designs or among the groups with the same GPA, there is evidence to suggest the CALM improves conceptual understanding of students in the middle GPA group. Students using CALM also showed increased participation with the interactive learning videos compared to the other design. The number of videos watched in each instructional condition aligns with overall academic performance as the low GPA group received the most assigned supplements but watched the least videos by choice. This study provides insight for technology developers on how to develop educational adaptive technology systems that provide a proper level of student agency to promote conceptual understanding in challenging STEM topics.
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- PAR ID:
- 10536302
- Publisher / Repository:
- John Wiley & Sons
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Computer Applications in Engineering Education
- ISSN:
- 1061-3773
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1002/cae.22790
