Despite the demonstrated learning benefits of peer evaluation, fears of teachers about its low reliability may restrict its use. In this study, the validity of peer assessment, in terms of agreement with the ratings of the teacher, has been tested in an organic chemistry course. The students were organized into small groups and commissioned to…

The academic success of first-year students' learning in science faculties is by no means assured, especially in an Open Distance Learning setting with its limited number of face-to-face encounters between students and lecturers or tutors. Therefore, such encounters should be highly efficient in view of the considerable amount of knowledge…

Purpose: Online resources can be helpful for students and can augment the content presented in learning environments. A team consisting of four biologists, a graduate student, instructional designer and media developers collaborated on the design, development and evaluation of first-year biology online tutorials in a Canadian University. The…

Active-learning pedagogical practices are encouraged in the education literature to improve academic outcomes. The research reported in this paper explored the effect of real-time interactive polling--a type of active learning--on three measures of academic outcome: final marks, student engagement, and failure probability. To provide credible…

The ground-breaking image of a black hole's event horizon, which captured the public's attention and imagination in April 2019, was captured using the power of interferometry: many separate telescopes working together to observe the cosmos in incredible detail. Many recent astrophysical discoveries that have revolutionized the scientific…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] This paper proposes the rethinking of the division of labor between physics education research curriculum developers and classroom instructors. Historically, both curriculum developers and instructors have taken responsibility for fostering students'…

As research-based, self-paced electronic learning tools become increasingly available, a critical issue educators encounter is implementing strategies to ensure that all students engage with them as intended. Here, we first discuss the effectiveness of electronic learning tutorials as self-paced learning tools in large enrollment brick and mortar…

This study analyzes the types of peer discussion that occur during lecture-based tutorial sessions. It focuses in particular on whether discussions of this kind have certain characteristics that might indicate success in the post-testing phase. The data were collected during an introductory physics course. The main data set was gathered with the…

Pressure to increase the throughput of university students in ethical ways has been a catalyst for innovations to improve learning and student success. Student dropout occurs mostly in the first year of study and poor performance is a major contributor to dropout even if the underlying reason for the poor performance is not academic…

The aim of this study was to investigate how first-year students view the purpose of tutorial groups in problem-based learning. In all, 147 students from 24 groups participated, providing 399 statements. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results showed a focus on both learning and social influence. Learning involved the tutorial as…

This article explores the efficacy of formative assessment feedback models in higher education. Over 1 year and two courses, three feedback techniques were trialled: staff-to-student feedback in class, peer-to-peer feedback in class and peer-to-peer feedback online, via "the Café," an e-learning application hosted by…

The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science organized by Code.org, a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science. This study investigated the impact of the Hour of Code on students' attitudes towards computer programming and their knowledge of programming. A sample of undergraduate students from two…

Although traditional lectures are still the dominant form of undergraduate instruction, there have been relatively few studies comparing various learner-centered and active learning teaching strategies to one another in order to guide professors in making informed instructional decisions. To study the impact of different active learning…

Computer aided assessment systems enable the collection of exact time and date information on students' activity on a course. These activity patterns reflect students' study habits and these study habits further predict students' likelihood to pass or fail a course. By identifying such patterns, those who design the courses can enforce positive…

As part of an innovative tutorial structure introduced to a first year university mathematics subject, an attendance monitoring system was implemented. The system collected data that was used to investigate the relationship between student attendance and assessment performance which is reported here. The implementation of this system also assisted…