How do teachers elicit and sustain students' interest and engagement in science lessons? This paper answers this question in the context of Bhutan, where students' performance in science is low compared to other subjects, and where falling levels of interest in science are a concern. Like other countries in the Global South, a large proportion of…

Flipped classroom in pharmacy education has been widely explored with a major focus on its effectiveness but little emphasis is given to assess the different in-class activities. Therefore, this work compares two in-class activities in an overall flipped classroom: analogical learning and team-based learning (TBL) for a pharmacy course. The…

This study aims: (1) to investigate the different motivations and perspectives for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that targeted attitudinal learning outcomes; and (2) to categorise learner profiles in regards to their perceived attitudinal learning gains. Seven hundred and ninety-six learners from three MOOCs participated in an…

This study describes an intervention that introduced a period of solving non-routine problems into tertiary STEM lectures. The aim was twofold: to attempt to increase student engagement and to introduce them to the kind of domain-free abstract reasoning that involves critical, creative and innovative thinking. The study involved over 600 STEM…

This study examines the interest, motivation, and behavioral engagement of college students in an introductory course relative to three instructional formats used in the course: hands-on, problem-based laboratory stations; problem-based written case studies; and video lectures. Groups of five to seven students were assigned learning activities as…

A modification in emphasis in an upper business course from a professor-centered approach to a student-centered focus demonstrated the use of possibilities to enrich a lecture course format to increase student engagement while also facilitating student readiness to enter the workforce. A proliferation of college teaching formats has emerged,…

Lecturing is often touted as a means to inspire students' interest, despite evidence that most lectures fail to do so. This study examines triggers of students' situational interest during lectures. Students (N = 706) in 12 different individual one hour first year lectures in a UK university were surveyed at the end of the lecture. They described…

Educational techniques that improve student engagement have repeatedly been shown to improve performance at the class level at many institutions and in multiple disciplines. However, knowledge of engagement in individual activities in large first-year classes, where there may be several subpopulations of students in different programs reflecting…

Consistent with current higher education concerns with student engagement and the student experience, this study explored third-year undergraduate Finance students' experiences of lecture-based active learning tasks. Finance students from the 2012 and 2014 cohorts from a South African university were invited to complete an anonymous questionnaire…

As in most disciplines, the typical introductory class presents topics to students in a linear fashion, beginning (to use psychology as an example) with the history of the field, research methods, brain and neurons, sensation and perception, and so on. This study examined the impact of topic sequence on student achievement. The same professor…

Studies indicate that the majority of students in undergraduate biochemistry take a surface approach to learning, associated with rote memorization of material, rather than a deep approach, which implies higher cognitive processing. This behavior relates to poorer outcomes, including impaired course performance and reduced knowledge retention. The…

Purpose: This paper looks at a particular type of cheating that occurs in an online university setting. That is, when students who have a connection from outside the online learning environment conspire to cheat together. It measures the correlations between student variables and cheating, instructional variables and cheating and learning outcomes…

Purpose: Because student viewership of video lectures serves as an important aspect of e-learning environments, video lectures should be delivered in a way that enhances the learning experience. The delivery of video lectures through diverse forms of media is a useful approach, which may have an effect on student learning, satisfaction, engagement…

Higher student enrolment at North American tertiary institutions over the last decade has led to a greater reliance on lecturing in large classes (i.e., 50 students or more). The efficiency of lecturing as a method of instruction can sometimes come at the cost of student interaction, engagement, critical thinking and satisfaction. Implementing…

This article uses student feedback to explore student attitudes towards the use of lecture breaks. The survey illustrates that undergraduates genuinely value such breaks, finding them educationally useful and enhancing their enjoyment of the lecture experience. By comparing and contrasting the perceived value of different types of lecture breaks,…