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This research framework suggests how an
instructor (or a group of instructors) and their students
can all become more aware of the consequences of how each
student chooses to do homework and study for exams: alone or
with others. This page describes two formats for doing the
research: A. one instructor doing the study alone; B. a
group of instructors who gather their own data and
also pool data. In both cases, the goal is to a) find out
how each student will study, b) report back to students the
average grade received by students who studied with others
versus the average grade received by students who studied
alone, and c) see whether students change the way they study
in response to these data. The larger goal of this
research is to contribute to students taking responsibility
for the ways they learn.
A. One Instructor Studying One Course
There are many ways to carry out this
research. Here's one way:
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Discuss with students how they study
(alone or with others), whether they tend to do it the
same way all the time, and why they study as they do.
Tell students that, if you do this research together,
it's their obligation to study as they indicated they
would, and your obligation to report to them as a class
the average grade received by the students studying
alone and the students studying together. Then
decide whether to go ahead with the research. (You might
decide this by vote: show of hands or anonymous.
Optional: review the survey questions (#2 and #6 below)
in advance with the students, or with a team of
interested students, and listen to their suggestions
about whether to reword any of the questions.
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Ask students to commit to one way of
studying for the coming weeks. They can use a form like
this
Flashlight Online survey in order to tell you
anonymously. (If you're a Flashlight Online user and
would like a copy of this survey, let your
institutional administrator know.)
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Report back. Periodically repeat this
process (every week or two?) to allow students to make
new decisions about how to study.
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Also report to students whether there is
any change in the total number of students studying each
way. If you take time to analyze the data more closely
you could report on how many people each time changed
from one pattern to another, and ask for discussion
about reasons for changing.
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Optional: Do
students who switch styles tend to get better grades
with their new style of study? (This is a tricky
question because the grade distribution is likely to
change from one assignment to the next) Once they
change, do they tend to stick with their new style, or
return to the old one?
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Optional: Use
this anonymous survey to see if students have any
observations about the impact of the mode of the study,
and of this research, on the way they do homework. This
survey could be administered late in the research.
B. A group of instructors studying many
courses
When instructors share insights, tools and
data, this kind of research has all the attributes of the
scholarship of teaching and learning. Research
question for this faculty learning community: does this kind
of research lead to students making different decisions
about how to study? Here's one way to design the
research. Each faculty member follows steps such as those
above for each class, working alone the first time in order
to get used to the procedure and decide whether to tweak it.
For the next semester, use Flashlight Online
2.0 as a
matrix survey. For each new class, create a new
respondent pool. Matrix surveys enable participating
instructors to see their own data, course by course. The
data can be pooled so that, for example, the percentage of
students studying together in week 2 can be compared with
percentage of students studying together in week 8.
(To see eClips demonstrating how to create respondent pools
and how to download data,
click here.)
The anonymous survey (#6) above can also be
used as a matrix survey. Matrix surveys may be
especially useful when the individual courses are small; by
pooling data across courses, the faculty may get a better
picture of the impact of this strategy on how students
study.
Faculty Sharing Further
Have you tried this approach in your own
course? Like it? Interested in helping a few colleagues
realize this is possible? First, you might take a look at
this bookmark, which summarizes the idea and includes a
link back to this web page. Make a copy, and edit it - put
your own name on it as a contact. Then print some copies.
Brief 2-3 colleagues, those most likely to
like this technique for engaging students. After you explain
it a bit, if they like it, give them one of your bookmarks
to help them remember the idea, and whom to contact to ask
questions, boast, etc.. And suggest that, if they like it,
they edit the bookmark to put their names on it, tell 2-3
colleagues about the technique, and give them a
bookmark.
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