Thanks for sharing Derek. What did you use to measure engagement? Is it a publicly available survey instrument?

 

Interesting findings. I feel as well that that engagement is where more significant differences will show up, not in academic performance, except at the lower end of the grade scale (more room for poorer students to improve).

 

Did you look at male/female differences? In other research, I’ve found females get higher evaluations than males on average, and that the added boost from active engagement in the team contributes to learning gains that approximately makes up for the gap that otherwise exists in male/female performance in my economics courses.

 

Molly

 

 

Hi all,

 

Great conversation, Molly, and quite topical for me! The references everyone is sharing are very useful, thank you.

 

I am in the analysis stage of a study I did on TBL vs “active lecture” in Spring 2020. My study measured “engagement” and “achievement” using survey data and grades. I taught both courses. The courses were on different topics, but with the same learning outcomes. It’s not published yet, but I will be presenting at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in May. Here is my abstract including some initial observations:

 

The Effects of Team-Based Learning (TBL) Pedagogy on Student Engagement and Achievement

According to Jim Sibley and Peter Ostafichuck, “TBL is a unique and powerful form of small group learning [that] harnesses the power of teams and social learning, combined with accountability structures and systematic instructional sequences to let you achieve powerful results” (2014, p. 4). This paper explores the effects of TBL pedagogy in the history classroom by comparing the experiences of students in two courses: one structured in a format in which lectures were interspersed with group activities and other active learning strategies and the other built using the TBL model.

 

Students in each course were asked to self-identify their level of engagement with the course material based on a clearly defined engagement scale. Student achievement of course learning outcomes were also compared. Eighty-two percent of students in the TBL course reported that it was more engaging than their other courses. In addition, mean final grades were five percent higher in the TBL course versus the non-TBL course. A higher proportion of students in the TBL course (88%) reported that they were equally or more engaged with the course content after taking the course than students in the non-TBL course (71%).

 

The data gathered in this study are insufficient to demonstrate a statistically significant correlation between TBL and student success. However, engagement ratings, written feedback, and classroom observation suggest that TBL did play a role in enhancing the student experience. As a pedagogical approach, TBL offers exiting possibilities for engaging students in the pursuit of historical inquiry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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