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Question-to-Learn Science in Higher Education: A Quantitative Study

Received: 22 April 2020     Accepted: 27 May 2020     Published: 4 June 2020
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Abstract

This work reports the results of a case study where traditional activities in an engineering/science classroom, such as demonstrations and self-paced activities, were compared with ‘writing across the curriculum” (WAC) activities. One group did writing-to-learn assignments and one group did our seminal construct ‘question-to-learn’ where they designed exam problems for their peers. A model is presented which describes the parameters that influence the exam score outcome. Some of these variables were carefully controlled during the project (labs, textbook, lecturer) and some other parameters were measured (lecture attendance, time-on-task and previous knowledge) in order to minimize data corruption due to confounding variables. The main parameter of interest, the ‘predictor’ of the exam score was the extra-curricular activity. A pre-test and a post-test were also conducted in order to establish the students relative gain. We also tested the hypothesis of using the quality of the students’ WAC outputs as a predictor of academic achievements. Data is analyzed both with parametric and non-parametric methods and results show that there was no significant difference between the groups on exam scores and that the relationship between WAC quality and exam scores is not significant. The main reason for the non-significant results is concluded to be due to low participation rates and too low “dosage”.

Published in Higher Education Research (Volume 5, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.her.20200503.13
Page(s) 83-93
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Writing-Across-the-Curriculum, Writing-to-Learn, Question-to-Learn, Higher Order Thinking Skills

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Cite This Article
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    Lars Bengtsson. (2020). Question-to-Learn Science in Higher Education: A Quantitative Study. Higher Education Research, 5(3), 83-93. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.her.20200503.13

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    ACS Style

    Lars Bengtsson. Question-to-Learn Science in Higher Education: A Quantitative Study. High. Educ. Res. 2020, 5(3), 83-93. doi: 10.11648/j.her.20200503.13

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    Lars Bengtsson. Question-to-Learn Science in Higher Education: A Quantitative Study. High Educ Res. 2020;5(3):83-93. doi: 10.11648/j.her.20200503.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.her.20200503.13,
      author = {Lars Bengtsson},
      title = {Question-to-Learn Science in Higher Education: A Quantitative Study},
      journal = {Higher Education Research},
      volume = {5},
      number = {3},
      pages = {83-93},
      doi = {10.11648/j.her.20200503.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.her.20200503.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.her.20200503.13},
      abstract = {This work reports the results of a case study where traditional activities in an engineering/science classroom, such as demonstrations and self-paced activities, were compared with ‘writing across the curriculum” (WAC) activities. One group did writing-to-learn assignments and one group did our seminal construct ‘question-to-learn’ where they designed exam problems for their peers. A model is presented which describes the parameters that influence the exam score outcome. Some of these variables were carefully controlled during the project (labs, textbook, lecturer) and some other parameters were measured (lecture attendance, time-on-task and previous knowledge) in order to minimize data corruption due to confounding variables. The main parameter of interest, the ‘predictor’ of the exam score was the extra-curricular activity. A pre-test and a post-test were also conducted in order to establish the students relative gain. We also tested the hypothesis of using the quality of the students’ WAC outputs as a predictor of academic achievements. Data is analyzed both with parametric and non-parametric methods and results show that there was no significant difference between the groups on exam scores and that the relationship between WAC quality and exam scores is not significant. The main reason for the non-significant results is concluded to be due to low participation rates and too low “dosage”.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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    T1  - Question-to-Learn Science in Higher Education: A Quantitative Study
    AU  - Lars Bengtsson
    Y1  - 2020/06/04
    PY  - 2020
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.her.20200503.13
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    PB  - Science Publishing Group
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    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.her.20200503.13
    AB  - This work reports the results of a case study where traditional activities in an engineering/science classroom, such as demonstrations and self-paced activities, were compared with ‘writing across the curriculum” (WAC) activities. One group did writing-to-learn assignments and one group did our seminal construct ‘question-to-learn’ where they designed exam problems for their peers. A model is presented which describes the parameters that influence the exam score outcome. Some of these variables were carefully controlled during the project (labs, textbook, lecturer) and some other parameters were measured (lecture attendance, time-on-task and previous knowledge) in order to minimize data corruption due to confounding variables. The main parameter of interest, the ‘predictor’ of the exam score was the extra-curricular activity. A pre-test and a post-test were also conducted in order to establish the students relative gain. We also tested the hypothesis of using the quality of the students’ WAC outputs as a predictor of academic achievements. Data is analyzed both with parametric and non-parametric methods and results show that there was no significant difference between the groups on exam scores and that the relationship between WAC quality and exam scores is not significant. The main reason for the non-significant results is concluded to be due to low participation rates and too low “dosage”.
    VL  - 5
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Author Information
  • Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

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