How much active teaching should be incorporated into college course lectures to promote active learning?

Abstract

A long-standing controversy in the learning sciences involves the appropriate balance between more didactic forms of instruction (e.g., lecture) and those that involve more active teaching (e.g., student learning activities). There have been calls for second generation research that examines how much class time should be allocated to student learning activities and how much to lecture to maximize student learning in college courses—a question of the appropriate mix of instructor lecture and student activity. The purpose of the present study was to systematically compare the effects on learning outcomes of two mixtures of learning activities and lecture during a college course on research methods: mostly lecture (consisting of ∼67 % to 75 % lecture and ∼25 % to 33 % learning activities), and mostly activity (consisting of ∼67 % to 75 % learning activities and ∼25 % to 33 % lecture). In a between-subjects design, students in a research-methods in psychology course experienced in-class lessons that were mostly lecture or mostly activity across two different lessons. Participants in the mostly activity condition scored significantly higher on an assessment of learning than those in the mostly lecture condition for a lesson on single-case research designs (d = 0.38) which was less complex but performance between the two instructional conditions was similar for the lesson on direct observational methods which was more complex. Theoretical implications involve potential refinements to generative learning theory. Practical implications involve recommendations for when to provide high amounts of student learning activities during a class period.