Abstract
The vast majority of research involving active learning pedagogies uses passive lecture methods as a baseline. We propose to move beyond such comparisons to understand the mechanisms that make different active learning styles unique. Here, we use COPUS observations to record student and instructor activities in six known styles of active learning in physics, and use latent profile analysis to classify these observations. Latent profile analysis using two profiles successfully groups COPUS profiles into interactive lecturelike and other. Five latent profiles successfully sorts observations into interactive lecturelike, Modeling Instruction, ISLE labs, context-rich problems labs, and recitationlike or discussionlike. This analysis serves as a proof of concept, and suggests instructional differences across pedagogies that can be further investigated using this method.Received 10 May 2021Accepted 5 January 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.010113Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasInstructional strategiesLearning environmentProfessional TopicsLower undergraduate studentsPhysics Education Research
Highlights
Active learning has been gaining traction in physics classrooms, with numerous studies showing how active learning can promote learning gains over passive lecture alternatives
It is imperative that we understand the mechanisms that make different “active learning in physics” pedagogies unique, so future studies can further delineate the benefits of specific active learning mechanisms
We ran latent profile analysis (LPA) on our data using model 1 for 2–8 profiles. This range of profiles was originally chosen because it was the same range that is used in the TidyLPA vignette [25], but was kept after investigating the results
Summary
Active learning has been gaining traction in physics classrooms, with numerous studies showing how active learning can promote learning gains over passive lecture alternatives. The “characterizing active learning environments in physics” project, or CALEP, sets out to establish a vocabulary that will allow us to speak about the different active learning pedagogies in physics, without relying on a comparison to passive lecture methods. Because active learning is an umbrella term for different pedagogical approaches, it fails to identify distinguishing characteristics of pedagogies in physics. To this end, we identified six pedagogies that are well represented in the literature and at professional development workshops at national conferences. We identified six pedagogies that are well represented in the literature and at professional development workshops at national conferences These six pedagogies have different approaches to active learning.
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