· web viewheather mcqueen, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics and associate director of...

Quectures: Personalised constructive learning in lectures

Heather A McQueen and Craig McMillan

Biographical/contact details of author(s)

Heather McQueen, School of Biological Sciences and Institute for Academic Development, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Email: [email protected]

Craig McMillan, School of Biological Sciences and Institute for Academic Development, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Email: [email protected]

Heather McQueen, a Senior Lecturer in molecular genetics and Associate Director of Teaching, works with biological science undergraduate students and academic staff. Her research interests concern student engagement and learning methods in higher education, as well as public engagement with science.

Craig McMillan is a recent graduate in biological science and is interested in learning methods in secondary and higher education.

Abstract

Active learning exercises engage students during lectures, but often fail to take account of the individual learning position of each student. The ‘quecture’ is a partially flipped lecture that incorporates students posing their own questions (quecture questions), discussing them during lectures, and re-visiting them later. These interactive learning events are designed to personalise students' construction of learning during lectures. Quectures were trialled in direct comparison with both fully flipped and traditional lectures, providing information on student attitudes, experiences and engagement with the learning strategy. Quectures were favoured by participants over the two other lecture formats and were found to be helpful both in increasing learning and in improving study habits, although some students had difficulty adjusting to, or disliked, the new mode of learning. The student-posed questions were also perceived by students to improve enquiry skills and to personalise learning. Although many chose not to engage with the strategy, those who did felt more engaged with, and more responsible for their own learning during quectures than in traditional lectures. Future work will be required to generalise the effectiveness of this strategy as well as to fine tune for optimum benefit. It will also be important to investigate which subpopulations of students preferentially engage or disengage with the strategy, and to unpick any relationship between this engagement and academic performance.

Keywords

Quectures; flipped classroom; active learning; constructive learning; co-operative learning; personalised learning; engagement; critical reasoning; thinking; questions.

Can active learning be used to personalise individual learning during flipped lectures?

It is widely acknowledged that a deep approach to learning is encouraged by learning environments in which students are actively engaged in making sense of the lecture material as opposed to being passive recipients of information (Entwhistle and McCune, 2004; Zepke and Leach, 2010). Rising student numbers at most higher education institutions present a particular problem for learning in large lectures where it is now clear that traditional teacher-focused approaches can result in students

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taking a surface approach to learning (Prosser and Trigwell, 2014). On the other hand, evidence consistently demonstrates that active learning in lectures, where teaching is student-centred and aimed at conceptual change, can improve student learning even in large classes (Foldnes, 2016; Huxham, 2005; Prosser and Trigwell, 2014; Roehl et al., 2013; Strayer, 2012; Zepke, 2013).

The flipped classroom, championed by Mazur (1997), is one model whereby lectures can be converted into a series of active learning exercises without losing learning content. Learning is reorganised such that students engage with the lecture content by advance preparation and construct meaning by active learning during the learning session (Bergmann and Sams, 2012). However, effective use of a flipped classroom depends upon mindfulness of both the pedagogy and purpose during design and implementation and, if poorly designed or poorly implemented, active learning interventions have no benefits to student learning (Andrews et al., 2011).

A key aim of the flipped classroom is to better engage students with learning, thereby encouraging them to take more responsibility for their own learning (Bonwell and Elson, 1991; Strayer, 2012). Ironically, students often disengage from lectures during the transition from more traditional learning to a flipped classroom approach, reporting the belief that lectures should be for students to ‘receive’ information, or that they do not have sufficient time to engage with the learning material in advance of the lecture (Burke and Fedorek, 2017; Chen et al 2014; McMillan et al., 2018; Seery, 2015). A second potential barrier to engagement is the highly variable transactional distance (the communication and psychological distance) between instructor and student, which changes frequently throughout the various activities that make up this learning environment (Chen et al., 2014). Such a fluid environment can prove difficult to adjust to leading to student anxiety, an increased cognitive load on individual students and, ironically, more surface learning (Baeten et al., 2010; Choi et al., 2014, Strayer, 2012). Critical factors to consider throughout the design and implementation of a flipped classroom strategy include i) instructor attitude (which should be approachable and non-judgmental), ii) explicit explanation of the strategy to students (including purpose, methods and benefits), iii) thoughtful learning design and task-setting and iv) awareness of student expectations based on prior experiences (Baeten et al 2010; Sharan, 2010; Zepke 2013). Introducing collaborative learning is one way in which learning design can be used to effectively reduce cognitive load. Working collaboratively during active learning tasks shares the cognitive load between students thereby reducing the individual load, and improves learning in the flipped classroom (Choi et al., 2014; Hermann 2013; Foldnes, 2016). Collaborative working during flipped lectures is often achieved using the peer instruction method whereby students are asked to reflect individually on a question posed by the instructor, before discussing with peers. Commonly answers are polled both before and after the student discussions and a class discussion completes the process. Polling can be achieved by a show of hands or using hand-held ‘clickers’ but increasingly students now vote using their own mobile devices. When mobile polling is used to support conceptual learning and to encourage collaborative discussion in this way, it has been shown to reduce the transactional distance and to improve both engagement and achievement (Remon et al., 2017).

A second consideration for flipped lecture design concerns the classical approach of providing all new information as preparatory material. This creates the danger that students will not complete the preparation and that incomplete preparation will result in knowledge gaps for students. Even for the most diligent student, some concepts are challenging for students to grasp on their own (during the high transactional distance of independent preparation) and may be better understood via explanation by an expert, as in a traditional lecture. A ‘half-flipped’ approach that includes some independent preparation alongside some traditional lecturing can help to reduce the cognitive load in both preparation and lecture phases and has been recognised to help students to make connections between the active learning tasks and the concepts in hand (Cavanagh, 2011; Westermann, 2014).

A third concern for the flipped classroom, particularly with a large number of students, is how to individualise learning. The contact session for a fully flipped lecture commonly consists of a small set of (perhaps 4-6) peer instruction questions that are set by the instructor. However, these questions will not address the interesting or confusing points for all students. Prior misconceptions held by learners are difficult to change and impede learning (Andrews et al., 2011; Smith and Knight, 2012), but are individually different. So how can instructors support individual learning whereby students take charge of addressing their own misconceptions and/ or points of interest in a large lecture environment? We know that student-centred deep learning depends on a host of complex factors such as regarding knowledge as a tool rather than a focus for learning, connection with the teacher,

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and a sense of student independence (Baeten et al., 2010), but how can we bring such factors together in a lecture in a way that helps students to recognise and deal with their own misconceptions? Student discussion, particularly giving rather than receiving explanation, is one way to promote student independence and personalisation. Slavich and Zimbardo (2012) advise that students can best engage in the higher-order skills of evaluation, synthesis and analysis by peer interaction where they are required to articulate their own logic. This is reminiscent of the ‘jigsaw’ form of collaborative learning described by Sharan (2010), where students work together to collectively master a well-defined topic or skill.

Peer discussion has been shown to enhance understanding even when none of the students in the group initially knows the correct answer to the question asked (Smith et al., 2009). For students to identify their own misconceptions and discuss their own thoughts it would be essential to allocate space and time to compose those thoughts. Indeed, Slavich and Zimbardo (2012) note the critical importance of preflection and reflection in the process of transformational student learning. Perhaps students thinking alone and then sharing embryonic ideas on their chosen aspects of the lecture material could allow them to better construct and consolidate their own understanding from a personal position, including identifying and addressing misconceptions or synthesising new ideas of personal interest. Doing this during the lecture period by delaying expert input but providing students with time to talk to each other instead could allow students to recognise and address the cognitive dissonance arising from placing their misconceptions alongside newly learned concepts. However, how can this freestyle personal reflection on learning be structured and supported within the lecture environment and can co-operative learning be encouraged within this structure? The requirements of co-operative learning include establishment of non-competitive shared goals, and rely on student motivation for doing the task, which may include assessment goals (Hermann, 2013).

A ‘quecture’ is a partially flipped lecture that incorporates repeated use of the novel ‘quecture question’. The use of questioning behaviour is strongly associated with critical thinking and can be used with students to ‘turn on their intellectual engines …Thinking is not driven by answers but questions’ (Critical Thinking Foundation, accessed 2017). The quecture questions are students’ own questions that are reflected upon, posed and discussed in response to a ‘think… type… talk’ instruction from the lecturer at discrete points in the lecture. Quecture questions are framed by students around personal points of confusion or interest related to published learning objectives, thus linking reflection and discussion to the common goals of achieving the learning objectives. The process is designed to promote the habit of thinking during the lecture rather than passively receiving information, and to improve the quality and personalisation of learning during the session. Quecture questions can be thought of as a version of the “minute paper” (Angelo and Cross, 1993), involving purposeful allocation of time for thinking during lectures. However, rather than having all members of the class work on a question set by the instructor, the quecture questions are intended to produce individual and personalised reflection, followed by discussion with peers, on newly learned topics. In order to assess the usefulness of this strategy there is a need to find out

to what extent do students engage with, prefer or resist the quecture strategy in comparison with traditional lectures or a fully flipped classroom and to what extent do students perceive the quecture questions to i) improve their learning habits, ii) individualise their learning experience, and iii) increase their responsibility for their own learning?

Method

ParticipantsThis study was carried out over two years with students in their second year of a four-year higher education degree at a Scottish university, taking one of two consecutive offerings of the same second year genetics class. Both classes had an approximately 3:1 female: male gender ratio and roughly two thirds of the students were enrolled in biology honours degree programmes. All students were informed about the study on the first day of the course and were advised that they could opt out of the study at any stage. All students in both classes received the same learning experience as current classmates but the format of the eight lectures (given by the first author) differed between the two classes. In the first year 3 quectures were trialled in direct comparison with 2 traditional lectures, and 3 fully flipped lectures where all the content was delivered prior to the lectures to allow the sessions to

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be devoted entirely to active learning (Table 1). In the second year all 8 sessions were quectures, but otherwise content was unchanged between the two years. The 8 lectures occurred mid-semester and constituted one quarter of the lectures in this second semester course.

<<Insert Table 1 here>>

Quecture structure Each quecture was constructed around 3 learning objectives that were made known to the students prior to the lecture and were addressed by preparatory materials, traditional lecturing, peer instruction questions and quecture questions (one per objective). Content was organised according to difficulty with descriptive material being conveyed in pre-lecture readings, videos or other bespoke or publicly available resources, while more difficult concepts were learned through explanation and activities during the lecture. For each quecture question the instructor used ‘Top Hat’ - an online interactive platform that enables students to use their own mobile devices- to send a pre-prepared message to students’ phones. The message reiterated the learning objective (that is, what they should be able to do as a result of their learning) followed by the phrase ‘Compose a relevant question that will advance your understanding or reflection on this topic’. Students were given approximately 2-3 minutes to reflect, compose and discuss their question with peers on each occasion. Before discussing, the students committed to their questions by submitting them to a communal electronic discussion board (via ‘Top Hat’). Students’ questions were viewed on the lecture room screen by the class (if the instructor chose to), but were also seen on students’ own mobile phones, and were available for online discussion until review at a subsequent lecture. The class, therefore, had the opportunity to reflect upon each other’s questions during the lecture, but also to re-visit all questions in their own time. At the end of each quecture students were reminded that it was their obligation to think, read and talk further about their own questions as well as to ‘answer, think, read, talk and like’ other students’ questions that interested them. In addition the instructor stated her own obligation to re-visit and comment upon some of the most popular questions at a stated future lecture. The use of quecture questions thus extends the peer instruction activity beyond the classroom, encouraging students to reinforce their knowledge by visiting the learning objectives before, during and after the quecture.

Quecture and flipped lecture implementationThe purpose, method and intended educational benefits of the flipped lectures and/ or quectures were explained to both classes via three entries in the course book, two short face-to-face explanations during lecture slots, 3-5 short explanatory videos on the virtual learning environment and a one-hour discussion with class representatives each year. The preparatory materials for each quecture and flipped lecture were available for one week prior to the lecture and consisted of a mix of electronically available reading, with bespoke videos (recorded by the instructor using the ‘Quick-time’ screen capture facility) and/ or interactive resources (co-created by the instructor and a fourth year undergraduate student using ‘Articulate Storyline’ software), as well as links to other web resources and/ or reflection questions. The preparation for each lecture ended with a short quiz including an open-ended question to solicit information on difficulties with the material. The preparation for each quecture was designed to take about one hour while the flipped lecture preparation was expected to take around two hours per lecture.

Structure of the Quectures and flipped lectures studyData was collected from both years of the study by a combination of surveys, mobile polling data, focus group interview and examination of routinely collected course evaluation. All responses were voluntary and collected from two classes totaling over 600 students.

In the first year of the study students were surveyed electronically via their mobile phone or by completing a paper survey at the last of the 8 experimental lectures, about their attitudes to the three forms of learning. Not all of the students were present in the class and only 91 of those chose to return survey responses. The survey contained 7 likert style questions rating how helpful various elements of the quectures or flipped lectures (such as videos, peer instruction questions or quecture questions) were towards learning. There were three multiple-choice questions about which approach students preferred or found most helpful, and there was one final open response prompt that generated 33 voluntary comments. Further information was also harvested from class questionnaires

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(211) where students were invited to provide free response comments about the best and the worst things on the course, 17% of which mentioned quectures or flipped lectures. Six months after the intervention students taking a follow-on third year molecular genetics course were asked (using mobile polling by the original instructor) whether they remembered the quectures and whether they would ‘have liked to have a few of these quectures on this third year course?’ 50 responses were collected. Finally, a further 6 months later (ie one year after the intervention) a class-wide online survey asked students to look back and consider how their learning, engagement and feelings of responsibility for learning were affected by quectures. Students were recruited to this survey by a link emailed to the entire class. Participation was anonymous and encouraged by prize draw gift vouchers. 40 students provided responses.

In the second year of the trial we repeated data collection at the last quecture, as in the previous year, using the same survey about attitudes to learning from quectures. One question pertaining to flipped lectures was removed from the electronic survey on the second year where no fully flipped lectures were delivered, but the paper versions were the same in both years (with advice to ignore this question). 52 student responses were obtained in the second year providing 22 open response comments. 136 class questionnaires were also analysed for relevant comments as in the previous year. An additional focus group consultation and survey about learning during interactive versus traditional lectures was carried out by an undergraduate Honours project student (the second author) one month after the quecture intervention.

Quecture engagement dataIn the second year of the trial where the only new type of lecture was the quecture, engagement with the quecture strategy was captured via submission of quecture questions to the ‘Top Hat’ system. General engagement with the course was measured as percentage engagement with 89 non-quecture ‘Top hat’ multiple-choice questions dispersed throughout lectures across the entire course.

Data analysisIn the two end-of-quecture surveys (collected from attendees directly after quecture implementation), responses to likert questions about helpfulness of learning resources were recorded on a scale of 1-4 where 1= ‘not at all’, 2= ‘a little’, 3= ‘more than a little’ and 4= ‘a lot’. The number of responses in each category was multiplied by the category number and converted into an overall percentage rating for the helpfulness of each component, with the caveat that 100% represented total support but, because a score of one was given for no support, the lowest possible score was 25%. Owing to the relatively small number of responses (ranging from 40 to 143 students) to most survey multiple-choice questions, actual numbers of students are presented in tables and figures, rather than percentages. There were 117 voluntary written feedback comments concerning quectures or flipped lectures, 55 of which were provided by end-of-quecture surveys and 59 from the free response sections of end-of course questionnaires (28 in the ‘best thing about the course’ section and 31 in the ‘worst thing’ or ‘suggestion for improvement’ section). Three further comments were taken from unsolicited student’s comments emailed to the instructor. All comments that pertained to quectures were anonymised and assembled into a single document which combined comments from different time points and collection methods, and from attending and non-attending students. The amalgamated document was read through three times by the first author and open coding was used to provide an index. The categories were then refined and reviewed, allowing new frequently arising themes to emerge. This resulted in 9 common themes. The document was re-checked to ensure that the 9 themes adequately represented the majority of comments. Illustrative quotes were selected to represent each theme.

85% of students from the second class (288 of 339) participated in 89 ‘Top Hat’ questions that were dispersed across the course and were not specific to the quecture intervention. Students were ranked according to their level of general engagement with non-quecture questions across the course, and the class was divided into four equally sized engagement quartiles. 143 students from this class submitted a total of 826 quecture questions across all eight quectures, giving an average of 6 questions submitted per participating student. 73 of these students submitted questions in 3 or more of the eight quectures. Different subsets of students were active in different quectures and new students were joining this cohort throughout the series of quectures. For organisational reasons the time allocated to quecture questions in the last two lectures was reduced and only 29 and 32 questions were submitted, while between 76 and 225 questions were submitted in each of the previous 6 quectures.

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Findings

Students that engaged with flipped lectures expressed a preference for quectures over traditional and fully flipped lectures

More students expressed a preference for the quectures than those that preferred traditional lectures or the fully flipped lectures (Figure 1a and b). When asked which model represented the most helpful way to receive information, the majority of students (69% over both years) chose the quecture model of content distribution (receiving content partly before and partly during the lecture) (Figure 1c).

<<Insert Figure 1 here>>

Students frequently reported forming better learning habits (Table 2, theme 1) with reduced passivity in lectures due to the active learning devices, by keeping on top of things during the course or by the regular practice afforded by the three stage structure of learning (before, during and revisiting each lecture). Student comments also described improved quality of learning (Table 2, theme 2), via better conceptual understanding rather than memorisation, as a result of the interactive and personalised quecture style. For example:

“Can prepare beforehand and all lectures is concentrated on understanding material not memorizing new information”.


In class-wide surveys one month and one year after the intervention, one quarter of respondents chose the quecture as their preferred lecture style, and around the same proportion were in favour of more quectures in later classes (Table 3).

Students reacted against the redistributed or increased work requirements of the quecture

Although students attending quectures favoured delivery of some content before lectures (Fig 1c) analysis indicated a common perception that too much preparation was required, and on too regular a basis, and that this was sometimes not achievable. From 9 themes identified, the negative theme of workload and timing issues (Table 2, theme 6) dominated the comment list. Of 31 comments concerning quectures or flipped lectures in the ‘worst thing’ or ‘suggestion for improvement’ section of end-of course questionnaires, 12 expressed dissatisfaction about the work required to prepare for flipped lectures. Many students commented that they were often simply too busy to do the one hour’s preparation and that, without preparation, the lectures became “not worth the while”, and that this could make some students fall further behind. For example, one student states

“if I did not have time to do prep work, the lecture was a complete waste of an hour of my life”.

Another common objection concerned dissatisfaction with the move away from transmissive learning, in particular having to identify one’s own learning rather than learning exactly what has been delivered in the lecture as ‘need to know’ information (Table 2, theme 7).

Posing quecture questions specifically developed enquiry skills and personalised learning

Students rated pre-lecture videos and peer instruction questions as the most helpful components of the quecture learning strategy, each scoring 81% (see method), while the quecture question scored 57%. The breakdown of responses reveals that 101 of 143 students (71%) agreed that quecture questions helped their learning to some extent (Figure 2).

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<< Insert Figure 2 here>>

Students identified that regular use of quecture questions to rehearse question-asking skills was helpful towards building their own enquiry skills. Students also recognised that having time to pose and discuss their own quecture questions was helpful towards personalising learning (Table 2, themes 3 and 4). One student commented

‘Initially i didn’t think I was going to like the quectures, however, they did begin to grow on me by the second/third. Overall, I do like the delivery especially when learning new concepts because we can slightly go over topics or terms we didn’t quite understand but, also we can learn from each other and gives shy people a chance to ask questions.’

Another respondent touched on many of the positive themes from Table 2:

‘I really enjoyed the lectures, and it was definitely a lot better than sitting in lectures not really being sure what is going on and trying desperately to write it all down. It's really helpful to come to a lecture already having a vague idea of the topic and then just consolidating that rather than coming to a lecture, not really grasping the concepts and then going home to try to figure it out. Also, having so many questions and discussions helped me know how well I actually understood a concept (which turns out to be less than I thought, but then going over the answer corrects those misunderstandings). Overall, I'm glad we had these lectures.’

Engagement with quecture questions was variable and non-engagement was sometimes specific

We found that almost one quarter of the students in the upper quartile (otherwise high-engagers) did not participate specifically with quecture questions. Conversely however, 4 students submitted multiple quecture questions yet participated in only 1 or none of the non-quecture questions across the rest of the course, demonstrating low-level specific quecture engagement. Our analysis suggests that some students did not believe in, or did not fully understand, the quecture strategy (Table 2, themes 8 and 9), providing quotes such as:

“I think quectures could be improved by removing the section where students ask their own question, because the best questions do not get up-voted and it really distracts from the key points...’”.

Some students found it difficult to compose questions within the limited time given during the lecture, and felt that time was wasted if no question had been raised (Table 2, theme 8), while other students misunderstood the strategy, raising concerns that the posed questions were not being answered in class (Table 2, theme 9).

Students felt more engaged, and more responsible for their own learning during quectures than in traditional lectures

In a survey conducted one year after the quecture experience, 55% of students said that quectures had made them feel more engaged than traditional lectures had, and 63% agreed that quectures made students feel ‘part of the lecture’ (Table 3).


Although three quarters of students felt that lecturers were responsible for student learning during traditional lectures, only one third felt this to be true of quectures where more respondents felt students to be responsible for their own learning (Table 3). A sense of increased student ownership of learning during quectures was echoed in the qualitative analysis where the theme of ‘feeling involved or even in control of own learning’ was identified (Table 2, theme 5) and illustrated by quotes such as : ‘‘… if you want, you can suggest which direction it goes in by submitting questions” and “.. you are responsible for learning the material by yourself and the amount of information you take from a lecture depends only on yourself”.

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Discussion

The quecture strategy combines traditional lecturing with active learning, and employs the quecture question to encourage peer instruction on individual students’ own questions during the contact session. We aimed to assess student perceptions of the usefulness of this half-flipped approach in comparison with traditional and fully flipped lectures and to gauge student perception of the usefulness of quecture questions with respect to changes in their own engagement and learning habits, personalisation of their learning, and their sense of responsibility for learning.

We found that students perceived the quectures to improve and personalise their learning, to boost feelings of engagement, and of being part of the lecture, and greatly increased their sense of responsibility for their own learning. However, the critical issue of student engagement was problematic with some students appearing to specifically disengage with the quecture questions that were ironically intended to boost engagement. This was not unexpected since transitioning to new forms of active learning is a known source of disengagement, and the negative themes raised by students in this study echo commonly reported themes of time restraints, learning habits and unmet expectations. In addition the quecture questions themselves were unusual class activities that may initially cause discomfort, leading students to choose to play along vicariously or not at all. We noted a difference in the level of enthusiasm for repeating the quecture experience in that attending students said that quectures were their preferred mode of study while a reduced proportion of the entire class shared this enthusiasm. If these issues are transitional then perseverance may also convert other students to appreciation of the method. However, some lack of engagement may well rest on more solid resistance since students with a transmissive learning preference simply oppose co-operative learning (Hermann, 2013). Although the co-operative learning in our quectures was generally perceived as useful, many of the students were more comfortable with traditional peer instruction questions than with posing quecture questions, which is a more demanding task.

We found that the half-flipped approach was strongly preferred to either the fully flipped or traditional lecture. Students understood and appreciated the benefits of increased active learning during lectures but were also appreciative of the retention of short periods of traditional lecturing. The reduction in cognitive load during both preparation and lecture phases was recognised as helpful and students reported an improved quality of learning and improved learning habits as a result of the structure of this learning design.

Despite some students seeming less comfortable with the quecture questions than with other learning activities, analysis showed that the majority of participating students agreed that the device helped their learning, specifically by personalising their learning and by helping them to build question-asking skills. Many students made specific reference to the fact that the periods of reflection and discussion allowed them to identify parts of the learning that they had not yet properly understood. The tactical use of time for reflection followed by co-operative ‘jigsaw’ learning focused on learning objectives during lectures proved to be an effective method for incorporating personalisation into the lecture. Structured opportunities to review and take stock of one’s own learning position are rare in university lectures and we consider that this intervention could bridge problematic and often neglected learning gaps for many students.

This study is limited in scope in that it has only looked at the attitudes of biology students and all within their second year of study at the same university. Because higher education institutes have very variable demographics it is unclear whether this strategy would be more or less successful with students from different backgrounds (educational, socio-economic, discipline), although the aims and methods of the strategy should be appropriate across disciplines. The limitation of involving only second year students could be particularly relevant since a worrying level of disengagement that is widely recognised in large early years classes is often most marked in the latter half of second year, where it is sometimes termed the ‘sophomore slump’. This could exacerbate the negative findings with respect to engagement in this study. A further limitation of this study is that the main method of reporting is confined to student self-reporting of attitudes or perceptions, and that we do not present any evidence of behavioural change or measures of performance. Lastly it is also important to note that the quecture has only been implemented, to date, by one instructor and only in two iterations of the same course, and only in part of the course. It is likely, therefore, that small progressive modifications that new techniques accumulate by experience and repeated use are yet to be

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discovered and applied to hone the strategy into its most useful format. It is also possible that longer-term continued use of the strategy would positively influence student buy-in, as habits and student understanding of the strategy develop.

In order to generalise our findings about the usefulness of the quecture strategy, it will be important to analyse its reception by, and effects on, students from a variety of disciplines, at varying levels of degree study and at different higher education institutes, implemented by other instructors. It will be of particular interest to investigate levels of engagement in these different contexts. This is of paramount importance because lack of engagement with the quecture questions precludes student benefit, potentially leading to negative views that we encountered. Because student barriers to effective engagement can result from unmet expectations due to prior experiences, at least part of the solution for non-engagers might be to introduce the strategy soon after starting university, before learning habits are formed, thus establishing this level of preparation and active participation from the get-go. Analysis of quecture engagement in a first year course will therefore be of particular interest.

Another avenue for future research would be the interrogation of contextual student data, with attention to engagement levels for disaggregated student subpopulations. This analysis could ascertain whether high engaging students over-represent any specific subsets of the student population such as with respect to gender, prior academic performance, or prior education, and whether this includes subpopulations in most need of changing their learning strategies (such as educationally disadvantaged students). The quecture intervention, through improved learning habits and increased responsibility for learning, might be expected to lead to slow and generalised improvements in student comprehension and study efficiency. Although difficult to measure, future studies could also relate performance data to this granular analysis of student engagement, to look for any associated measurable learning gains for sub-populations of students that best engage with the strategy.

Finally, with respect to fine-tuning of the quecture strategy, student comments in this study reported problems formulating an appropriate question within the given time implying that better use of time might also improve the strategy, and perhaps help to remedy the problem of active disengagement. Improved consistency and clarity on the time to spend on quecture questions during lectures could help to build student confidence with the strategy. However, a second modification to explore would be to require students to reflect upon and compose their questions, based on preparation materials, in advance of the lecture. Of course these students’ questions may be answered or evolve during the lecture component of the contact session which would then form a good starting point for the peer discussion during the session. Reflection on questions prior to the lecture and discussion prior to submission could be expected to improve the quality and relevance of students’ questions. Improvements in question quality as a result of this modification could be measured by Bloom’s taxonomy based rating of questions produced by both strategies. Outcomes, including comparison of student perceptions of the usefulness of the quecture questions, could then be compared between the two implementation strategies.

The quecture question could be used as an active learning intervention to provoke reflection and individual construction of learning in a variety of different learning contexts. The quecture question can but need not be part of a flipped lecture, and would also work well as a stand-alone intervention during other forms of guided enquiry for learning. Critical reasoning and personally relevant ideas, reflections and questions are the normal behaviours adopted by academics during seminars. Might strategies such as the quecture question transform classrooms into environments where students routinely engage in the same thoughtful way?

References

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Daphne Loads for enthusiasm, encouragement and helpful comments at all stages of this project, and Atanaska Velichkova for producing interactive resources to support the flipped lecture.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declaration

The authors declare no conflicting interests concerning this work. The work was conducted in an ethical and responsible manner aiming to comply with all relevant legislation, and was approved by the local University ethics committee.

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Table 1: Number of flipped lectures and quectures given on the same course over two consecutive years.

Year of Study Traditional Flipped Lectures

Quectures Class size

year 1 2 3 3 342year 2 0 0 8 339

Table 2: Numbered themes with illustrative quotes from analysis of student comments with respect to the quecture strategy.

Positive themes (selected illustrative quote)1. Establishing and forming habits of better modes of learning

‘Really liked this mode of learning, this made sure that I'm keeping up with the lecture content while encouraging me to pose my questions, instead of taking in information passively and catching up before the exam.’

2. Improved quality of learning ‘I was able to apply my knowledge to situations directly after learning which allowed me to manipulate the data and grasp a deeper understanding of the concept.’

3. Building enquiry skill ‘very helpful and I feel that it has greatly improved my capability of asking questions around the lecture material, that will in the long run help me to grasp the material a lot better’

4. Personalised learning ‘I especially liked to have these rounds of asking any questions. I felt more inclined to go through the material again and it was easier to identify things that I had not quite understood.’

5. Feeling involved or even in control of own learning

‘… allowed a lot of student input on difficulties and areas of interest- which helped cater the lectures to what the students wanted '

Negative themes (selected illustrative quote)6. Workload and timing issues ‘-expected us to do FAR too much prep

in advance – we have other subjects and commitments. I don’t need to prepare for a LECTURE too.’

7. Identifying focus for learning problematic-

‘Quectures – difficult to understand what is examinable.’

8. Student question asking simply not useful

'... lose interest during the periods when we have to write questions about the lectures because I can't come up with questions on the spot'

9. Misunderstanding quecture questions as questions for lecturer

‘There's no motivation to write questions because we expect them to

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not be answered' Table 3: Numbers of student responses extracted from three anonymous surveys about quectures. The time between quectures and survey is shown for each question. Students were unselected for attendance at quectures and responses to the surveys at +1 month and +1 year were motivated by an anonymous prize draw.

Questions Traditional

Interactive

Quectures

No preference

Unsure Total

Which lecture style do you prefer? (+ 1 month)

7 34 15 3 1 60

Yes and I attended

Yes but I did not attend

No

Do you recall the quecture style of lecturing from GGA (3 interactive lectures during which you asked your own questions via Top Hat)? (+6 months)

29 8 13 50

Yes No Not sure

Would you have liked to have a few of these quectures on this third year course? (+6 months)

11 20 18 49

Would you like to see more quectures in your courses? (+1 year)

12 20 8 40

More About the same

Less

Compared with traditional lectures, how much do you feel you learned? (+1 year)

9 16 15 40

Compared with traditional lectures, how engaged did you feel? (+1 year)

22 11 7 40

Strongly agree

Slightly agree

Neutral Slightly disagree

Strongly disagree

To what extent do you agree: The quectures made me feel part of the lecture? (+1 year)

6 19 8 5 2 40

Entirely lecturer

Mostly lecturer

Shared Mostly self Entirely self

During quectures, who did you feel was most responsible for your learning/driving the learning process? (+1 year)

4 10 11 10 5 40

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During traditional lectures, who did you feel was most responsible for your learning/driving the learning process? (+1 year)

13 17 9 1 0 40

Figure Legends:

Figure 1. Survey results from two consecutive classes of students attending quectures or flipped lectures. The text of the questions and responses, and the number of students choosing each response are shown. The response ‘no pref’ read ‘no preference’ in the surveys a) First year of this study. ; b) Second year of this study; c) Both years of this study. Possible responses were ‘all before the lecture’ ‘part before and part during the lecture’ (labeled as ‘quecture’ on the figure) or ‘all during the lecture’; d) First year of this study.

Figure 2. The combined number of students across both years of this study choosing each of four response options given on the figure.

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Figure 1:

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Figure 2:

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· web viewheather mcqueen, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics and associate director of...

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