A Comparison of Student Achievement Across Pedagogical Modalities

Abstract

Recent research provides evidence that students’ active participation in course activities creates stronger connections and enables deeper levels of information processing and learning compared to passive teaching and learning methods (Nurbavliyev et al., 2022). The present study investigated the effect of active learning (i.e., class activities) vs passive learning (i.e., lecture) on academic performance, and whether this effect was influenced by student characteristics. We hypothesized that students in the active learning group would perform better on multiple choice exam questions than students in the passive learning group. We further hypothesized that students with text anxiety would benefit more from active vs passive learning in terms of exam performance.

Participants were students enrolled in hybrid (with activities) or in-person (lecture-based) PSYC 105 courses at MacEwan University. Our sample size for our analyses related to academic performance included 24 participants, 14 from the active group and 10 from the passive group. Our sample size for our correlational analyses included 97 participants. Participants filled out questionnaires assessing personality, self-regulation, procrastination, and test anxiety. They attended their regular Psychology course throughout the semester and completed their course exams. Our results show that students in the active learning condition performed better on standardized multiple choice questions than students in the passive learning condition. We also found a moderately positive relationship between procrastination and test anxiety, and neuroticism and test anxiety. These results illustrate the potential benefits of universities offering more opportunities for active learning to help improve students’ academic performance.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michele Moscicki