Exploring the Impact of POGIL on Student Engagement and Conceptual Understanding

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This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate STEM education and identifying best practices to increase student engagement. Numerous studies have shown that evidence-based teaching strategies, such as Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), lead to better student outcomes, from higher grades to increased self-efficacy and sense of belonging. The research community is only beginning to understand why POGIL has these effects on students and what aspects of POGIL are most important for maximizing learning and other outcomes. This project plans to investigate how student engagement and understanding are affected by instructional approaches, including interactive lectures (lectures interspersed with student activities) and POGIL. Engagement is known to be important to student learning, but the nature and extent of this engagement is not well documented. Both approaches involve multiple practices, but not enough is known about which practices faculty use and the resulting impact on student learning. This project hopes to identify how these practices impact student outcomes, and how faculty can enhance these outcomes.This project plans to: (1) Examine similarities and differences in engagement-related behaviors of students and instructors during POGIL activities and interactive lectures; (2) Measure the degree of concurrent validity between classroom observation results and the student and instructor perceptions of student engagement; and (3) Look for possible differences in students' understanding of a concept when it is introduced using a POGIL activity and when it is introduced using an interactive lecture. To explore the relationship between student engagement and learning, the PIs will measure the engagement of the same students in different class periods taught by the same instructor, using either POGIL or interactive lectures. Student learning when concepts are introduced via POGIL versus interactive lectures will also be analyzed. Student engagement will be measured by triangulating classroom observations with student and faculty ratings. Quizzes will be developed and administered that will measure different kinds of conceptual understanding. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.