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Board 28: Work in Progress: How Do Students Respond to Active Learning? A Coding Guide for a Systematic Review of the Literature

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Conference

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Salt Lake City, Utah

Publication Date

June 23, 2018

Start Date

June 23, 2018

End Date

July 27, 2018

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--29997

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/29997

Download Count

563

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Paper Authors

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Caroline Elizabeth Crockett University of Michigan

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Caroline Crockett is a graduate student at University of Michigan, working towards a PhD in electrical engineering. Her current interests include student resistance to active learning and electrical engineering education research.

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Kevin A. Nguyen University of Texas, Austin Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-2445-7529

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Kevin Nguyen is a Ph.D candidate in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education program at University of Texas at Austin. He has worked on NSF grant projects related to students' resistance to active learning and how funding impacts STEM graduate students. His own dissertation work examines learning, marginality, and environmental citizen scientists. He has a B.S. and M.Eng in Environmental Engineering both from Texas Tech University.

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Prateek Shekhar University of Michigan Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-6552-2887

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Prateek Shekhar is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan. His research is focused on examining translation of engineering education research in practice, assessment and evaluation of dissemination initiatives and educational programs in engineering disciplines. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California and B.S. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from India.

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Robert Matthew DeMonbrun University of Michigan

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Matt DeMonbrun is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. His research interests include college student development theory, intergroup interactions, and teaching and learning practices and how they relate to student learning outcomes in engineering education.

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Sneha Tharayil University of Texas, Austin

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Sneha Tharayil is currently in pursuit of her PhD in STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Having formerly been a middle school science teacher in Southern California, Sneha developed an interest in precollege engineering education, seeing it as a rich context for integrated STEM learning. She is particularly interested in social justice pedagogies for teaching engineering to precollege students, especially those pedagogical motifs of project-based service-learning and the like.

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Robyn Rosenberg Harvard University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4139-7628

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Robyn Rosenberg is the Engineering Librarian at Harvard University. She has a degree in Anthropology from Penn State University and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Cindy Waters North Carolina A&T State University

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Her research team is skilled matching these newer manufacturing techniques to distinct material choices and the unique materials combination for specific applications. She is also renowned for her work in the Engineering Education realm working with faculty motivation for change and re-design of Material Science courses for more active pedagogies

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Maura J. Borrego University of Texas, Austin

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Maura Borrego is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She previously served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, on the board of the American Society for Engineering Education, and as an associate dean and director of interdisciplinary graduate programs. Her research awards include U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and two outstanding publication awards from the American Educational Research Association for her journal articles. Dr. Borrego is Deputy Editor for Journal of Engineering Education. All of Dr. Borrego’s degrees are in Materials Science and Engineering. Her M.S. and Ph.D. are from Stanford University, and her B.S. is from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Cynthia J. Finelli University of Michigan Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9148-1492

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Dr. Cynthia Finelli is Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Associate Professor of Education, and Director and Graduate Chair for Engineering Education Research Programs at University of Michigan (U-M). Dr. Finelli is a fellow in the American Society of Engineering Education, a Deputy Editor of the Journal for Engineering Education, an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education, and past chair of the Educational Research and Methods Division of ASEE. She founded the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering at U-M in 2003 and served as its Director for 12 years. Prior to joining U-M, Dr. Finelli was the Richard L. Terrell Professor of Excellence in Teaching, founding director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and associate professor of electrical engineering at Kettering University.

Dr. Finelli's current research interests include student resistance to active learning, faculty adoption of evidence-based teaching practices, the use of technology and innovative pedagogies on student learning and success, and the impact of a flexible classroom space on faculty teaching and student learning. She also led a project to develop a taxonomy for the field of engineering education research, and she was part of a team that studied ethical decision-making in engineering students.

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Abstract

This work in progress paper presents an example of conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) to understand students’ affective response to active learning practices, and it focuses on the development and testing of a coding form for analyzing the literature. There is a growing body of literature on the benefits of active learning. However, instructors are hesitant to adopt these new practices, partly due to concern about negative student response. By analyzing findings from multiple studies, our SLR will allow others to better recognize underlying patterns and provide a compelling case for how instructors can overcome student resistance to active learning. Specifically, this paper will compile results of an SLR regarding affective student response to active learning to answer the following questions: (1) In published studies about active learning, what evidence is used to measure student affective responses to active learning? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of each type of evidence? (2) What patterns exist in the literature with respect to student affective response to active learning. Specifically, what instructor strategies, course content, class size, assessment methods, and active learning practices are presented? (3) Overall, are student reactions to active learning instruction generally positive or negative? We conducted database searches with carefully-defined search queries (e.g. keywords included “active learning”, “student response”, and “engineering education”) which resulted in 2,754 abstracts from 1990 to 2015. Each abstract was then screened by two researchers based on meeting inclusion criteria (e.g. describes an active learning intervention, includes empirical evidence of affective student reaction, and is in an undergraduate STEM education course), with an adjudication round in the case of disagreement. We used Refworks, an online citation management program, to track abstracts during this process. To date, we have identified 340 abstracts which satisfied our criteria. Following abstract screening, we developed and tested a manuscript coding guide to capture the salient characteristics of each paper. We created an initial coding form by determining what paper topics would address our research questions and reviewing the literature to determine the most frequent response categories. We then piloted the form, using Google Forms to compile the data from multiple researchers, to identify and address unclear term definitions and overlapping questions. We tested the reliability of the form over three rounds of independent pair-coding, with each round resulting in clarifications to the form and mutual agreement on terms’ meanings. This process of developing a manuscript coding guide highlights the importance of iterating between pair-coding and discussion stages and demonstrates how to use free online tools, such as Google Forms and Google Sheets, to inexpensively manage inputs from multiple coders and to manage a large SLR team with significant turnover. Currently, we are in the process of applying the coding guide to 340 full texts. When complete, the resulting data will be synthesized by creating and testing relationships between variables, using each primary source as a case study to support or refute the hypothesized relationship. We will present preliminary results from this analysis in the full paper.

Crockett, C. E., & Nguyen, K. A., & Shekhar, P., & DeMonbrun, R. M., & Tharayil, S., & Rosenberg, R., & Waters, C., & Borrego, M. J., & Finelli, C. J. (2018, June), Board 28: Work in Progress: How Do Students Respond to Active Learning? A Coding Guide for a Systematic Review of the Literature Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29997

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