A pedagogical approach to improve retention rates in a rigorous biochemistry course was studied. A quasi-experimental design was used in which the first three semesters provide data on the control group using traditional pedagogy consisting of forty, 50 minute lectures. The treated groups provided data over the subsequent three semesters. Treatment consisted of a pre-test for existing knowledge, a lecture on leadership and group dynamics, and assignment of students to heterogeneous homework groups based on the pre-test. Findings are based on researchers’ observations and comparative statistics. Variables were percentage of students who received a final passing grade, and percentage of students who received a failing grade or dropped the course. The treatment cost of one class period was worth the benefits of increased student content contact time and a 23% increase in retention (P<0.05).
Biochemistry knowledge is essential for many disciplines of service. Professionals working in the fields of medicine, pharmacology, chemical engineering, or any of the life-science based disciplines must understand and be fluent in biochemistry. College students who want to gain the knowledge and skills needed to pursue any of the life-science professions expect and are expected to perform well in rigorous course work. Excellent performance in rigorous course-work is likely to be associated with higher quality service in the life science disciplines.
Professional educators are at the top of the service provision pyramid. The best pedagogical practices should be used system wide. The primary stakeholder of a college education is the college student. By the time a college student reaches a rigorous course like biochemistry, they expect knowledgeable instructors to practice the best pedagogical techniques. These techniques insure every student has the best opportunity to gain the knowledge.
Cooperative learning is a technique of instruction that has shown promise for courses of rigor at the college level. In order to offer sound pedagogical practice many researchers have turned their research lens toward this technique, (Cooper, 1995; Courtney, Courtney, & Nicholson, 1992; Mills, 1995; and Watson, & Marshall, 1995) to enhance student achievement and improve retention. For our purposes we hold with many of the principles espoused by these researchers concerning cooperative learning. Stahl’s (1994) 13 principles for cooperative learning serve as our guide for defining our treatment.
At the highest level of undergraduate biochemistry the learning curve becomes dramatically steeper. Students encounter greater frustration concerning their abilities to retain and make useful the information presented. This frustration results in many students either failing or dropping the course before completion. The high percentage of students failing or dropping the class is of serious concern to the modern educator. This concern is the impetus spurring this study. A quasi-experimental design was used. The control group provides the first three semesters of data. The treated group provided data over the subsequent three semesters.
This quasi-experimental design offers an opportunity to find answers to the following research questions:
The six semester span for data collection allows for a quantitative research piece. The hard sciences use the term quasi-experimental to connote a research design whereby the research setting exists outside of the laboratory, and thus rigorous variable control is not possible. Therefore, the term quasi-experimental applies to this design.
Here, two variables were measured, one being the percentage of students who received a final passing grade, and the other being the percentage of students who received a failing grade or dropped the course. There were three control groups and three treatment groups. Data are expressed as the mean + the standard error of the mean for the three groups. Data were analyzed by a T-test. While findings are reflected in descriptive statistics, based on a six semester time span across these two variables for one biochemistry class, inductive reasoning allows us to infer what practices improve student learning.
First, we provide a description of the university, college, division, and biochemistry course of interest. Details of course delivery are included.
The site is within a state-supported, land-grant university of 25,000 students in the southeast. The university is a Carnegie Research Extensive institution, noted for programs in medicine, allied health professions, and law. Degrees in arts and sciences, engineering, animal sciences, business, and human resources and education are offered as well.
The biochemistry course is offered to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students from many of the institution’s 13 colleges through the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences. The college houses 5 divisions: Family and Consumer Sciences, Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Plant and Soil Sciences, Forestry, and Resource Management, with varied programs of study and multiple degree options.
The Division of Animal and Veterinary Sciences offers three undergraduate degree programs: The B. S. in Animal and Veterinary Sciences, B. S. in Agriculture, and a B. S. in Biochemistry. The division also offers 12 masters degrees, and five doctoral degrees.
The class is Introductory Biochemistry (agricultural biochemistry 410) and is composed of upper-level undergraduate students and a few graduate students. The class is a one-semester class and is required for undergraduate students in biochemistry and in the growing forensic sciences major. The class is an elective for students in biology, chemistry, and chemical engineering. The class is taught both fall and spring semesters and generally has an enrollment of 75 to 100 students. This is the class that students aspiring to professional school in the life sciences (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary school, optometry, or any life-science research) take in order to prepare them for their future endeavors including entrance exams such as the MCAT. The official prerequisite for the class is the first semester of organic chemistry although having both semesters of organic completed is generally advised.
Treatment consisted of a pre-test for existing knowledge, a lecture on leadership and group dynamics, and assignment of students to heterogeneous homework groups based on the pre-test in the three groups which encompassed 281 students. What follows is a detailed description of treatment.
Maximizing student achievement is a common goal for educators. Best practice instruction is the growth option for teachers who look to improve their practice. Johnson, Johnson, and Smith (1991) contended that there is ample evidence to support cooperative learning as an effective method to enhance student achievement. Stahl (1994) indicate that placing students in groups to work together does not reflect the practice of cooperative learning. Defining heterogeneous cooperative learning groups as the treatment in this study was a determinant factor in choosing Stahl’s (1994) framework for cooperative learning as follows: (a) use of specific learning outcomes, (b) all students in the group share the learning effort, (c) heterogeneous learning groups, (d) equal opportunity for success, (e) positive interdependence among learners, (f) face-to-face interaction among learners, (g) positive social interaction behaviors and attitudes between learners, (h) access to must-learn information (i) opportunities to complete required information-processing tasks, (j) sufficient time spent learning, (k) individual accountability, (l) public recognition and rewards for group academic success, and (m) post-group reflection (or debriefing) on within-group behaviors.
The 13 pieces of this framework served as the guideposts for treatment implementation.
Initial discussions about how to improve retention rates in a rigorous biochemistry class moved us to agree on treating the science of biochemistry as a language unto itself. This view prompted further discussions based on a student having a measure of fluency in biochemistry prior to setting foot in the classroom. If fluency in a language means an individual can function well in a given culture because having an understanding and being able to speak the language is the operational factor, why not measure a student’s fluency in biochemistry early in the course to see how fluent each student is?
The whole of any language may never be known, but if fluency means ease of functionality in the current cultural context, consider that level of fluency 100%. A pre-test of general fluency in biochemistry would give an instructor some idea of where each student is on a fluency scale. There are prerequisite courses for students who enroll in biochemistry; each prerequisite imparts part of the language to the would-be biochemistry student.
Golf can be a team sport. Certain golf tournaments require a team of four to be grouped according to the handicap of each golfer. The lower the handicap is, the better the player. Each team is required to have a low handicapper (A- player), a moderately low handicapper (B- player), a high handicapper (C- player), and a very high handicapper (D- player). Heterogeneity of golf playing ability for each team promotes a fair tournament playing field.
Based on the pre-test scores, each study group was formed with four students of varied understanding of the language of biochemistry. Each study group had a student with a high level of understanding (A- student), a moderately high level of understanding (B- student), a low understanding (C- student), and a very low understanding (D- student). The composition of each cooperative learning group supported the tenet of heterogeneity of student fluency in the language of biochemistry: This offered an equal opportunity for each team to have similar group dynamics for enhanced learning according to overall group knowledge.
A brief lecture about leadership and group dynamics was part of the treatment. Assumptions were made about both of these notions being a valuable part of asking students to reflect on who they are and how to get more out of the class.
Our intention to bring students to a point of self-reflection about who they are and how they got where they are was based on leadership literature. Covey (1989) held that if an individual is valued as a person by others, that individual’s potential is elevated in his or her own eyes, known as the “Pygmalion effect or Self-fulfilling prophecy”. (p.17) Placing value, on these students as learners, was in-part our first idea to try to move already highly motivated students to try to learn more. Before the second content lecture we brought a guest lecturer into the class, one familiar with the languages of leadership and group dynamics. The guest lecturer prompted the students to think about their roles as leaders in the learning community, being sure to suggest our notions of biochemistry being a language. Other ideas presented to the students were few commanded fluency in the language of biochemistry, and command of the language of biochemistry placed each of them in an elite group.
A handout with leadership ideas from the works of Covey (1989) and Kouzes and Posner (2002) was given to each student. The intent here was to familiarize each student with a few terms of leadership to help place them in the center of a self- reflective mode where they would see themselves as leaders. The guest lecturer asked the students to think about how to maximize their learning experience in the class because of how this might position them in a role of leadership in their chosen profession.
Thinking about oneself as a leader seemed inadequate as a motivational factor for highly competitive students to work in teams. The guest lecturer introduced the work of S. R. Parson (personal communication, September 28, 1998) on group dynamics that illustrates the ideas of group roles for maximizing productivity. Our thoughts for good team work for cooperative learning groups refers to Stahl’s (1994) seventh idea about group learning, learners should have positive attitudes and good social interactions in order for learning groups to really cooperate so that all learners have a chance to learn. The guest lecturer asked the students to work hard to help each other learn, provoking each student to think, if one could teach a concept one would internalize the idea at a higher rate. This assumption was reliant on another about the competitive nature of these high performing students, which portends that each of them wanted to excel in gaining this fluency in biochemistry so the idea of teaching a well understood concept to peers would enhance the possibility of accomplishing ones own personal learning goals. If one in four group learners could teach 25% of the new biochemistry concepts to fellow group learners with a modicum of success, overall group achievement would be enhanced. Redundancy and reinforcement are the pedagogic principles for this part of the treatment (Walls, 1999).
Stahl’s (1994) twelfth element of successful cooperative learning for the classroom indicates that rewarding students for their group work is an important motivational factor for helping others learn. Rewarding cooperative learning groups for study time well spent was another part of treatment. The biochemistry instructor informed the study groups that each group had the opportunity to contribute exam questions. If the question was framed well and demonstrated a high level of sophistication it could appear on an exam. This part of the treatment had students developing about one third of the questions for examinations.
Our findings, though humble in scope, demonstrate that the use of cooperative learning groups in a rigorous college level course enhances overall student achievement. The percentage of students who dropped or failed the class for the control group was 29 + 5% (see Figure 1). The percentage of students who dropped or failed the class for the treated group was 13 + 2%. Conversely the pass rate for the control group was 71%, while the pass rate for the treated group increased 23 % (p<0.05) to 87%.
Failure at this level of the biochemistry sequence often proves to be a determining factor for student development in the life-sciences. This treatment provides an alternative for marginal students to achieve greater success in the discipline. Success in the discipline is not the only benefit to the student. Historically, isolation is the norm for high achieving students in the hard sciences where competition fosters this study habit. However, the people skills associated with cooperative learning groups provide practice for the real world setting of the practitioner, where difficult problems are solved by teams of professionals.
In light of the current trend data for student achievement in science and math, these findings could have implications for student achievement in high level science courses at the post secondary level. Replication of this study on a grander scale seems justified as it may have an impact on the current trend. Future research aimed at isolating variables associated with good pedagogical practice at the upper levels of instruction will have a positive impact on student achievement. Improvement of pedagogical practice at this level should be an institutional imperative. Since professional preparation is costly, instructional practice should match cost by being maximally effective.
We believe this collaboration serves as a model for strengthening the academy.
We hope that this investigation serves as a prompt for further discussion of how to improve our practice. We invite any and all serious dialogue related to this work.
Cooper, M. M. (1995). Cooperative learning: An approach for large-enrollment courses. Journal of Chemical Education, 72, 162-164.
Courtney, D. P., Courtney, M., & Nicholson, D. (1992). The effect of cooperative learning as an instructional practice at the college level. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association, Knoxville, TN.
Covey, S. R. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal change. NY. Simon & Schuster.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Number 4.Washington, D. C.; The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development. Retrieved January 30, 2005, from http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/lib/cooplearn.htm
Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3 rd Ed.). San Francisco. Jossey-Bass
Mills, B. J. (1995). Introducing faculty to cooperative learning. In W. A. Wright (Ed.), Teaching improvement practices: Successful strategies for higher education (pp. 127-154). Boston, MA: Anker.
Stahl, R. J. (1994). The essential elements of cooperative learning in the classroom. ERIC Digest, ERIC Identifier: ED370881. Retrieved January 30, 2005, from http://www.ericdigest.org/1995-1/elements.htm
Watson, B. B., & Marshall, J. E. (1995). Effects of cooperative incentives and heterogeneous arrangement on achievement and interaction of cooperative-learning groups in a college life science course. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 32, 291-299.
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