Collaborative Research: Longitudinal Impact of Peer-Led Team Learning on Retention of Chemistry Concepts and Attitudes toward Chemistry

同伴领导的团队学习（PLTL）是一种依靠成功完成课程的学生（称为“同伴领导”）回到课程中带领新生进行小组学习活动的教学方法。这种方法的一个优点是，它可以用于大型大学科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）入门课程。因此，PLTL已在全国一百多所高校实施。研究发现，PLTL比单纯的讲座式教学更有效地促进了学生的学业成功。然而，大多数研究只研究了PLTL在单一课程中的影响。因此，我们对PLTL对学生长期知识和技能保留的影响知之甚少。因此，这个改进本科STEM教育（IUSE: EHR）探索与设计项目将通过调查PLTL与基于讲座的教学相比，在多大程度上支持化学知识和技能的长期保留，来填补一个重要的研究空白。因为学习也会受到学生的动机和态度的影响，所以这个项目也会测量这些因素。这些研究将在南佛罗里达大学（USF）、中佛罗里达大学（UCF）、新罕布什尔大学（UNH）和南缅因大学（USM）进行。这些研究的结果有可能告诉大学化学教师如何促进和评估学生对知识和技能的长期保留。该项目将使用两种并行方法调查PLTL对普通化学知识保留的纵向影响。在第一种方法中，项目团队将评估学生在高级定量分析课程中的知识，作为他们在普通化学课程中是否参与PLTL的函数。USF， UCF， UNH和USM的教师将与研究团队合作，为理解定量分析的核心的一般化学概念创建评估项目。除了更传统的考试题目外，还将使用新颖的创造性练习（CEs）。ce由提示组成，要求学生尽可能多地写出清晰、正确和相关的相关陈述。这种生成式评估方法旨在揭示学生根据提示构建的正确和不正确的关联。一项入课调查将确定在定量分析课程中作为普通化学的学生或同行领导者参与过PLTL的学生，并确定他们在课堂内外的学习经历的性质。第二种方法将是纵向比较研究，学生将在普通化学课程结束时被招募。学生将被要求在课程结束时对他们的一般化学知识和技能进行评估，并在接下来的两年时间内进行两次以上的评估。将准实验的体内方法与实验的体外方法相结合，将有助于平衡每种研究方法的相对优缺点。此外，还将收集和分析其他相关的学生测量，包括动机、元认知、态度和作为化学学习者的自我概念。这些数据将用于对学生亚群进行分类或聚类，以进行统计或描述性比较。该项目的结果有望为学生和同行领导者提供关于PLTL长期价值的见解，为普通化学和分析化学创建新颖的内容知识评估，并为教学设计师提供关于PLTL最有价值的学习方面的指导。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) is a teaching method that relies on students who successfully completed a course (known as "peer leaders") to return to the course to lead new students in small group learning activities. A strength of this approach is that it can be used in large introductory college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. As a result, PLTL has been implemented at more than one hundred colleges and universities nationwide. Research studies have found that PLTL promotes student academic success more effectively than lecture-based teaching alone. However, most of this research has only examined PLTL's impacts within a single course. Thus, little is known about the impacts of PLTL on students' long-term retention of knowledge and skills. Therefore, this Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) Exploration & Design project will fill an important research gap by investigating the extent to which PLTL supports long-term retention of chemistry knowledge and skills, in comparison to lecture-based instruction. Because learning is also affected by students' motivation and attitudes, the project will also measure these factors. The studies will be carried out at the University of South Florida (USF), the University of Central Florida (UCF), the University of New Hampshire (UNH), and the University of Southern Maine (USM). The results of these studies have the potential to inform college chemistry instructors regarding how to promote and evaluate long-term student retention of knowledge and skills.The project will investigate the longitudinal impact of PLTL on general chemistry knowledge retention using two concurrent approaches. In the first approach, the project team will assess students' knowledge in upper-level quantitative analysis courses as a function of whether or not they participated in PLTL in their general chemistry courses. Instructors at USF, UCF, UNH, and USM will collaborate with the research team to create assessment items for general chemistry concepts that are central to understanding quantitative analysis. In addition to more traditional exam questions, novel Creative Exercises (CEs) will be used. CEs consist of prompts that ask students to write as many related statements as they can that are distinct, correct, and relevant. This generative assessment approach is designed to reveal both correct and incorrect associations students construct with the prompts. A course-entry survey will identify students in the quantitative analysis courses who had been involved in PLTL as a student or peer leader in general chemistry, and determine the nature of their learning experiences in and out of the classroom. A second approach will be a longitudinal comparison study, for which students will be recruited at the end of their general chemistry course. Students will be asked to respond to assessments of their general chemistry knowledge and skills at the end of the course and twice more within the following two-year period. The combination of the quasi-experimental in-vivo approach and experimental in vitro approach will help balance the relative advantages and disadvantages of each research approach. In addition, other relevant student measures, including of motivation, metacognition, attitudes, and self-concept as chemistry learners, will be collected and analyzed. These data will be used to disaggregate or cluster sub-populations of students for statistical or descriptive comparisons. Results from the project are expected to provide insights regarding the long-term value of PLTL for students and peer leaders, create novel content knowledge assessments for general chemistry and analytical chemistry, and provide guidance to instructional designers regarding the aspects of PLTL that are most valuable for learning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.