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American Journal of Physics -- January 2011 -- Volume 79, Issue 1, pp. 123

Listening to student conversations during clicker questions: What you have not heard might surprise you!

Mark C. James1 and Shannon Willoughby2

1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona 86011
2Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717

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When instructors provide time for students to discuss their ideas in Peer Instruction, instructors minimally expect that the conversation partners will discuss their opinions relating to the physical attributes posed in a question and submit clicker responses that coincide with individual opinions. We defined conversations that met these two criteria as “standard conversations.” In our study of 361 recorded Peer Instruction conversations from large introductory astronomy classrooms taught by experienced instructors, we found that 38% of student conversations were standard conversations. Of the remaining 62%, we identified three broad categories consisting of ten types of “nonstandard” conversations. The first category of conversations describes student ideas that were not reflected in any of the given multiple choice answers. The second category includes issues related to the interpretation of the statistical feedback provided by electronic classroom response systems. The third category describes common pitfalls experienced by students during conversations that led to unproductive interactions. Our analysis of nonstandard Peer Instruction conversations will be useful to practitioners and researchers seeking to improve the implementation of Peer Instruction.

© 2011 American Association of Physics Teachers

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank NAU e-Learning Director Don Carter and Assessment Coordinator Sue Pieper for their support of this study. The authors would also like to thank the reviewers who provided numerous insightful suggestions that helped the authors improve their manuscript.

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. SAMPLE/METHODS
  3. FINDINGS
    1. Unanticipated student ideas
      1. Unanticipated student ideas regarding directly related content knowledge
      2. Unanticipated student ideas regarding near related content knowledge
      3. Unanticipated student ideas regarding fundamental science content knowledge
      4. Trying to relate disparate material from previous lectures
    2. Statistical feedback misrepresenting student understanding
      1. Using extraneous cues to arrive at a response
      2. Responding with another student’s answer preference
    3. Conversation pitfalls
      1. Not articulating physically based rationales when making choices
      2. Answer appears self-evident
      3. Passivity in deference to another student
      4. Students unable to initiate a conversation
    4. Factual-recall type questions and conversation type
    5. Grading incentive and conversation type
  4. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

computer aided instruction, physics education

PACS

  • 01.40.Fk

    Research in physics education

RELATED DATABASES

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History
Received Aug 2009
Accepted Aug 2010

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0002-9505 (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Association of Physics Teachers

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3488097

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Tables (2)

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