STUDENT LEARNING GAINS IN TRADITIONAL AND INTERACTIVE ENGAGEMENT CLASSROOMS AT A PUBLIC, FOUR-YEAR UNIVERSITY MEASURED BY THE GEOSCIENCE CONCEPT INVENTORY (GCI)

Between the Fall 2005 and Spring 2010, paired, pre- and post-instruction Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) tests were given to 2202 CSUF students in 49 introductory-level geology courses to assess student conceptual learning. The purpose of these assessments was to determine the differences in student learning gains between traditional lecture and interactive engagement (IE) classes. IE classes generally used some combination of in-class quizzes, exercises, personal response systems (PRS), homework and field trips. Classes ranged from single instructor, 230-student, lecture, lab optional classes to a team taught, 60-student lecture with required lab. Mean gain factor for each class showed that student gains ranged from +0.27 to -0.19 (both traditional lecture) with an overall average of +0.06. Classes with a negative gain were frequently followed by a positive gain the following semester. Looking at instructor time series, each classroom change (i.e., scheduling, teaching method) resulted in a drop in mean gain score; however, teaching method changes were followed by increased gain the following semester. Ultimately, 4 instructors used PRS daily. One instructor used PRS for quizzes, attendance and knowledge-level lecture recall with points awarded based on participation and correct answers. This class had a mean gain of -0.02 compared to +0.06 for 4 non-PRS classes by the same instructor. The 3 other instructors used Conceptest questions and PRS with participation points only. For these 3 instructors, the initial class taught with PRS had a lower mean gain than the preceding class taught by the same instructor. The second class taught by the same instructor, again using PRS, resulted in gains in two of these classes that exceeded the overall mean. The third class gains were below the overall mean, but showed improvement over the preceding class. In one class, PRS-using students had a mean gain of +0.08 whereas students not using PRS had a mean gain of +0.09. The use of IE and PRS at CSUF typically receives positive comments from students and faculty; however, based on the preliminary evaluation of the GCI data, CSUF students in IE classes do not show greater learning gains over traditional classes. The first class that instructors used PRS resulted in lower gains; however gain scores improved after the second use.