Getting active to increase equity

Abstract

Education Attrition and underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) go hand in hand. Part of this relationship is due to underrepresented students experiencing achievement gaps, especially in “gateway” courses. Theobald et al. investigated whether underrepresented students in active-learning classrooms experience narrower achievement gaps than underrepresented students in a traditional lecture course. The research team collected data on exam scores and failure rates for ∼54,000 students in both traditional lecturing and active-learning STEM courses taught by the same instructor. On average, active learning reduced achievement gaps in exam scores and passing rates and offered disproportionate benefits for underrepresented groups. These results provide more support for replacing traditional lecturing with active learning, which now has the added benefit of being a strategy for increasing equity in higher education. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117 , 6476 (2020).