{"title":"Psychological safety in online interdisciplinary student teams: What teachers can do to promote an effective climate for knowledge sharing, collaboration and problem-solving","authors":"Helena Robinson, Fabian Held","doi":"10.1177/14697874241275346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241275346","url":null,"abstract":"Interdisciplinary complex problem-solving relies on psychologically safe teamwork where individuals feel confident to speak up with unique knowledge, or voice dissent. Existing studies on psychological safety (PS) have mainly concentrated on developing diagnostic tools and categorising the antecedents to psychologically safe interactions in face-to-face teams. Few focus on the establishment and maintenance of psychological safety in online teamwork, let alone in the context of now-prevalent online learning in higher education. Leveraging the natural experiment in online teaching and learning brought about by COVID-19 lockdowns, we conducted a preliminary study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the extent to which, and how, undergraduates experience psychological safety in virtual teams. Students reported experiencing relatively high psychological safety in their collaborations, yet the results also suggest that specific elements of instructional design were needed to support the establishment and maintenance of psychological safety in the online environment. These measures include extra provision for timetabled group work, demonstrating openness and curiosity, designing assessment tasks that necessitate diverse contributions and normalising constructive failure through iterative feedback. Pedagogical tools and practices related to these measures can help online student teams build and sustain psychologically safe collaboration to optimise problem-solving and innovation.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142263794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jaeseo Lim, Yongmin Shin, Min Hae Song, Seunghee Lee, Jungjoon Ihm
{"title":"Self-study in higher education: Its role in productive discussions and learning outcomes","authors":"Jaeseo Lim, Yongmin Shin, Min Hae Song, Seunghee Lee, Jungjoon Ihm","doi":"10.1177/14697874241270429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241270429","url":null,"abstract":"Although discussion is widely used as an effective instructional strategy in the classroom, the questions remain about which additional strategies can be combined to discussion. The present study aims to examine the role of self-study as an individual preparation for discussion and the learning effect of the combination of self-study and discussion. We compared a two-sequential design of groups: individual preparation (video lecture vs. self-study) and type of discussion (teacher-facilitated vs. student-led). We compared the test scores for shallow learning and transfer of learning. Conducting two experiments ( n<jats:sub>1</jats:sub> = 91; n<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> = 113, respectively), we found that the self-study group obtained higher scores than those of the video lecture group regardless of discussion type. Specifically, the self-study group obtained higher scores through student-led discussions, while lecture groups improved scores through teacher-facilitated discussion. To interpret the results, we analyzed the content of discussions. The result demonstrated that students in the self-study group conducted more constructive interactions with students than they did with teachers, while the video lecture group interacted more with teachers than they did with students. The findings indicate that self-study as individual preparation improves the learning effect of discussion.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142213017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sonia Ilie, Karen Forbes, Sara Curran, Jan D. Vermunt
{"title":"Higher education students’ conceptions of learning gain","authors":"Sonia Ilie, Karen Forbes, Sara Curran, Jan D. Vermunt","doi":"10.1177/14697874241270461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241270461","url":null,"abstract":"Learning gain in higher education, specifically the development of subject-adjacent skills, abilities and competencies, is of key scholarly and policy relevance. However, little research focuses on students’ broad understandings of learning gain. This paper takes a phenomenographic approach to explore students’ conceptions of learning gain, and how these may differ by subject and stage of study. Drawing on thirty-three qualitative interviews with a diverse group of undergraduate and postgraduate students across four subjects in three UK universities, this paper derives three distinct categories of understanding in relation to learning gain, increasing in complexity. The first category, naïve understandings, is characterised by short-term learning goals, the prioritisation of surface approaches to learning including memorisation, with subject knowledge more important than skills. Motivations to learn are broadly extrinsic and related to assessments. The second category, emergent understandings, features greater awareness of approaches to learning, including structured planning of learning activities in response to a range of goals, and pragmatic responses to desirable learning outcomes. There is growing recognition of links between subject-specific and generic skills, and adaptation features strongly. The most sophisticated category, comprehensive understandings, is characterised by flexible learning goals, the acknowledgment of the independent nature of higher education learning and strong self-regulation, with deep approaches to learning consciously prioritised. Dynamic views of knowledge prevail, which distinguish this category from the other two. These categories of understanding grow in complexity with study stage, and also vary by subject of study, with interactions present in relation to prioritised aspects of learning gain, views of change and how explicit aspects of learning gain are made within the subject of study. Any attempt to capture learning gain for its improvement would therefore need to encompass a variety of aspects of learning gain, contextualised for subject and stage and include a student perspective.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142213016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anna C Brady, Christopher A Wolters, Penny A Pasque, Shirley L Yu, Tzu-Jung Lin
{"title":"Beyond goal setting and planning: An examination of college students’ self-regulated learning forethought processes","authors":"Anna C Brady, Christopher A Wolters, Penny A Pasque, Shirley L Yu, Tzu-Jung Lin","doi":"10.1177/14697874241270490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241270490","url":null,"abstract":"This study aimed to identify and evaluate major processes college students engage in as they begin their active engagement in learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 college students. Then, a grounded theory approach was used to identify the forethought processes students described. These processes included identifying goals, ordering and prioritizing tasks, scheduling, storing goals and plans, and regulating goals and plans. Additionally, findings indicated that students perceived their engagement in these forethought processes as connected to their beliefs about the subject domain, prior experiences, and subject domain and context. These results highlight processes that have not been thoroughly captured previously by self-regulated learning frameworks. Thus, articulating these processes provides a deeper understanding of students’ active engagement in self-regulated learning.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142213019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How does virtual peer presence relate to learning from video lectures and subsequent explanation generation? The moderated mediating roles of motivation and explanation characteristics","authors":"Fangfang Zhu, Yun Pan, Zhongling Pi, Jiumin Yang","doi":"10.1177/14697874241256375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241256375","url":null,"abstract":"Finding effective ways to improve students’ learning from video lectures will not only improve online education efficacy, it will also play an important role in the digital transformation of education. Generating written explanations has shown some benefits for learning, and peer presence may be an implementation-related boundary condition. This study tested the impacts of virtual peer presence (presence vs. absence) and generative tasks (generating explanations vs. no generation) on students’ learning in a video-based learning context. Students’ attention, meta-comprehension accuracy, motivation, cognitive load, learning achievements, and explanation characteristics were measured. Results showed some benefits of having a virtual peer, and of generating written explanations on students’ learning. Moreover, mediating analyses revealed the mediating role of motivation between peer presence and learning achievement, and moderated mediating analyses revealed the moderating role of explanation characteristics between peer presence and motivation. Our findings not only extend the understanding of the positive effects of generating written explanations in video-based learning contexts, they also provide implications for improving students’ learning from video lectures as well as optimizing online video lectures.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142213028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dawn Holford, Janet McLean, Alex O Holcombe, Iratxe Puebla, Vera Kempe
{"title":"Engaging undergraduate students in preprint peer review","authors":"Dawn Holford, Janet McLean, Alex O Holcombe, Iratxe Puebla, Vera Kempe","doi":"10.1177/14697874241264495","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241264495","url":null,"abstract":"Authentic assessment allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skills in real-world tasks. In research, peer review is one such task that researchers learn by doing, as they evaluate other researchers’ work. This means peer review could serve as an authentic assessment that engages students’ critical thinking skills in a process of active learning. In this study, we had students write peer reviews of preprints, scaffolded by a rubric. Agreement between the students and academics was reasonable, and active student involvement was high. The results suggest that use of peer review in undergraduate classes should be explored more. It likely facilitates students’ ability to evaluate the quality of scientific studies, encourages active learning about the scientific process and shows potential for contributing to publicly-available assessment of scientific studies.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141873267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"University teachers’ perspectives on teaching: The differences among academic disciplines","authors":"Jovana Milutinović, Biljana Lungulov, Milica Lazić","doi":"10.1177/14697874241262010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241262010","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous studies indicated that perspectives and approaches to teaching of university teachers vary considerably across academic disciplines. However, other research presented contrary results. Regarding such inconsistencies in previous findings, the aim of this research was to examine the representation of five perspectives on teaching and three commitment components (Beliefs, Intentions and Actions) among university teachers of different academic disciplines. The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) which contains 45 items was used on the sample of 342 teachers from the University of Novi Sad. Dominant perspectives indicated that these teachers were more teacher-centred and that there are differences among university teachers from different academic disciplines (technical, social, medical and natural sciences) in terms of how they conceptualise and approach teaching. Differences between teachers from hard and soft sciences were evident only on the Social Reform perspective and on Intention component; hard sciences teachers were more teacher-centred and content-oriented while soft sciences teachers were more student-centred and learning-orientated. Understanding of the teaching process should include knowledge about academic culture and the context in which teaching takes place, which suggest the need to respect different disciplinary cultures when creating pedagogical training programs for university teachers.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141785486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Free and open source systems: Their value for engaging learners in online settings","authors":"Sarah Peterson, Don Finn","doi":"10.1177/14697874241257883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241257883","url":null,"abstract":"In higher education, a primary concern with online learning versus in-person learning centers on offering and facilitating effective communication and collaboration opportunities for students. New technologies, specifically free and open source system (FOSS) applications, help bridge these gaps by giving instructors and students the means to effectively collaborate online. Instructors appear to be at the forefront of integrating these tools, as they are adopting free online applications for their courses on their own, but they do not have readily available support from their institution, particularly for incorporating these tools with a learning management system (LMS). A study including 165 higher education instructors determined the most prominent FOSS applications adopted by faculty, as well as what areas institutions can dedicate support through resources and personnel. Based on these results, the research provided an understanding of how institutions can implement support for instructors to combine FOSS applications with an institution’s LMS successfully. Institutions should concentrate on personnel support and provide their faculty with guided resources, best practices, training, and professional development opportunities to increase use and keep it consistent across their digital campus.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141379893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Using the COIL pedagogy as a strategy for improving the virtual international educational experiences of students: North-South hemisphere case study","authors":"Jessica Garizurieta-Bernabe, Rosaley Prakaschandra","doi":"10.1177/14697874241256620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241256620","url":null,"abstract":"International Collaborative Online Learning (COIL) is a term that describes virtual mobility experiences that are integrated into the formal curriculum to give students the chance to interact with peers at international universities in specific learning activities, while also developing intercultural, professional, and digital skills. The objective of the research is to explore the influence of this pedagogical practice on the students’ learning, as well as to identify the associated challenges, the lived experiences of the students in Clinical Technology of the Technological University of Durban (DUT) in South Africa and the Administration students of the Universidad Veracruzana (UV) in Mexico were explored, during the application of the COIL pedagogy. Through a thematic analysis methodology, three themes emerged, namely: Experiences, Challenges, and Learning. This study confirms the usefulness of COIL as a pedagogy for internationalization in higher education and the development of professional skills, by incorporating the intercultural dimension in the curriculum within the virtual space. It is recommended that an appropriate instructional design, as well as an analysis before implementation to determine language proficiency and time zones of participating countries.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141165900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listening to students: Beliefs and attitudes about active learning and effective lecture-style courses","authors":"David C Johnson, Marcie Coulter-Kern","doi":"10.1177/14697874241254465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14697874241254465","url":null,"abstract":"Research shows that active-learning methods (e.g. discussion) are often superior to passive methods (e.g. lecture) with respect to learning outcomes. However, students sometimes report preferring and learning more in lecture-style classes compared to those in which they play an active role. These and related findings suggest students may lack awareness about the relative effectiveness of passive versus active teaching methods on their own learning. Here, we used a mixed methods approach to assess college students’ beliefs, attitudes, and feelings about lecture-style courses ( n = 246). One primary goal was to assess if, and to what extent, students would express an unprompted desire for interaction in lecture-style classes when reflecting, in an open-ended format, upon their real-world educational experiences. Respondents reported that the majority of their classes were lecture style, in accordance with previous research, and noted that they view lecture as a mostly effective form of pedagogy. While respondents described high-level knowledge and compelling delivery of the subject matter, effective class design and use of technology, and good stagecraft on behalf of the instructor as important aspects of effective lecture-style teaching, a substantial proportion of students mentioned interaction as the most important component of an effective lecture style class, suggesting that student preferences for passive classrooms is far from universal. Implications of these findings are discussed.","PeriodicalId":47411,"journal":{"name":"Active Learning in Higher Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141105435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}