Research Summaries

February 17, 2021 Nick Young

Escaping the “Covering Content” Narrative

If you want to make your course learner-centered, we have some ideas.

February 3, 2021 Prasanth

Students rarely use advanced problem solving strategies that they were explicitly taught in class

Students rarely use advanced problem solving strategies while solving problems even when these strategies had been taught in class. Explicit instruction that scaffolds varying levels of cognitive load inherent in these methods may be necessary for students to effectively use such strategies.

January 27, 2021 Nick Young

Changing grade weight can close grade gaps introductory physics

Simply reducing exams from 70 percent of the final grade to 50 makes a large difference.

December 17, 2020 Emily Kerr

Interventions Encouraging Students to Draw and Reason Regarding Intermolecular Forces Improve Ability to Predict Relative Boiling Points From Lewis Structures

Interventions encouraging students to reason through and use supporting evidence to predict boiling point trends improves student understanding

December 16, 2020 Nick Young

Earning a PhD depends more on the research environment than the student’s ability

That’s right. The research environment also matters more for publications and citations.

December 2, 2020 Nick Young

Students aren’t using online resources to cheat as much as you may think.

Students often use online resources to learn more or because they don’t find course resources accessible.

November 18, 2020 Nick Young

Increasing equity in your course: there’s an intervention for that

Taking a recitation period to explain that adversity in college in common may help in closing gender and ethnic grade gaps.

November 4, 2020 Emily Kerr

Metacognitive Training May Improve General Chemistry Student’s Study Strategies

A metacognitive intervention teaching General Chemistry students effective study skills led to students identify effective practices and may have improved performance in the course.

October 14, 2020 Prasanth

Does prior training in a VR environment help students learn better from VR based instruction?

Prior training in a VR environment on a topic unrelated to electrostatics helps students familiarize themselves with the environment, but doesn’t provide any additional learning benefits.

September 30, 2020 Nick Young

How representative are PER studies?

Not very. The participants are whiter and wealthier than the general college population.