Teaching with symbols tangentially related to topic: using a linked multimedia approach to enhance learning

40 undergraduate students, none of whom were history or literature majors, attended a lecture on Medieval literature. For half the students the lecture was supplemented by two sets of slides. One set summarized course content while the second set contained slides of paintings or other forms of visual art which were only tangentially related to the topic. For the other half of the student-group, the lecture was supplemented by course content slides only. Students viewing symbolic slides had significantly higher test scores on a written 20-question multiple-choice test given immediately after the lecture.     

SHORT- AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCY MANAGED INSTRUCTION ON LOW,MEDIUM, AND HIGH GPA STUDENTS1

Undergraduate students had been assigned to a contingency managed course or a conventional lecture course (Du Nann and Fernald, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1976, 9 , 373–374). Two years later, some 35% (N = 86) of the original classes responded to a letter offering them $2.00 to participate in a study of their educational experiences. These students completed a multiple-choice test on material from the course, and answered questions about activities and attitudes that might have been affected by the experience in Introductory Psychology. In the contingency management course 2 yr past, students were tested each week on a chapter of textbook material with 10-item multiple-choice quizzes. The course employed a modified “Doomsday Contingency”, requiring each student to achieve 80% mastery on one of the four weekly quizzes or drop the course. Quizzes were given in small groups and scored individually, while the student stood near, by an undergraduate proctor assigned to that group. The proctor was asked to show interest in the students' quiz performances, help clear up difficult areas, and develop a friendly working relationship with each student. While many students passed the quiz on the first attempt, others were given individual tutoring, so that no one was in fact forced to drop the course. In addition to the weekly quiz assignment, students in the contingency managed group were asked to attend one lecture each week. While the contingency management course procedures had much in common with PSI (Keller, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1 , 79–89), several departures made them unique. First, self-pacing was curtailed because students were required to master one unit per week or drop the course. Second, proctors met with students in small groups, usually giving individual tutoring only to those students who did not pass the quiz on the first attempt. Finally, students were asked to attend one lecture per week. Students in the conventional lecture group were not asked to pass weekly quizzes, but instead attended three 50-min lectures each week. Two of these lectures followed the textbook material closely, while the third, which was also attended by students from the contingency management course, covered material only indirectly related to the text. This partition of lecture content allowed material to be similar across the two instructional groups. Although students in the lecture condition were told they could obtain copies of the quizzes, few of them did so. Course grades were determined by scores on two 45-item multiple-choice hourly exams, each covering half the semester material (each worth 25%), and by a 90-item final exam, which served as a measure of short-term retention. Before analyzing the follow-up data, several characteristics of the returning students were compared to determine the comparability of the sample from the two original classes. Most important, both attrition and the current mean GPAs of students from the two classes were very similar. These considerations, and others, suggested there was no systematic sampling bias to confound comparisons of student performance. A 2 (contingency management versus traditional lecture) by 3 (high, medium, and low GPA) analysis of variance was computed on the course final-exam scores and the follow-up measures. Instructional procedure and GPA interacted on the final exam such that low and medium GPA students performed significantly better under contingency management, but there was no significant effect of instructional procedure with high GPA students. On the 2-yr retention measures, students from the contingency management course performed significantly (p < 0.01) better on items drawn from quizzes used in their original course, and marginally better (p < 0.10) on items drawn from the final exams, but no interactions with GPA appeared. Furthermore, instructional method produced no significant main effects or interaction with how many students became majors or minors in psychology, how many psychology courses were later taken, how many books in psychology were reported to have been read, or on students' evaluation of the interest and importance of psychology.     

AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF A CONTINGENCY MANAGED COURSE WITH LARGE LECTURE METHOD1

Contingency management procedures resembling the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) were compared with a conventional lecture method in teaching an introductory psychology course. The use of a within-subjects design in which half of the students experienced both teaching conditions made it possible to examine the reliability of test-score differences over time when subjects were balanced over conditions. In the contingency management course, material was broken down into 14 small units, each unit covering about 30 pages of text. Students were assigned to an undergraduate teaching assistant who was encouraged to develop a close working relationship with each of his/her 13 assigned students. Specifically, this meant that the assistant was to call each student by his/her first name, show an interest in the student's quiz performance, help the student understand difficult concepts, and discuss various topics of interest to the student. Each week, the teaching assistant administered up to four different 10-item multiple-choice quizzes over the week's chapter. A modified “Doomsday Contingency” required each student either to achieve a score of 80% on one of the four quizzes or drop the course. Most students passed the quiz during the first session of the week; those not passing were tutored on special areas of weakness. No student was actually forced to leave the course under the Doomsday Contingency. Although quizzes were administered on a group basis, they were scored individually while the student stood near by. In addition to the weekly quiz assignment, students under the contingency management procedures were asked to attend one lecture per week. The contingency management method departed from traditional PSI in that (1) self pacing was minimal, such that students were required to master one unit per week or drop the course, (2) teaching assistants met with students in small groups, and usually gave individual tutoring only to those students who did not pass the quiz on the first attempt, and (3) students were asked to attend one lecture per week. However, it was similar to PSI in that small units of subject matter were assigned and unit mastery was assessed through use of undergraduate assistants who delivered immediate feedback. Students in the conventional lecture group attended three 50-min lectures each week; two of these lectures followed textbook material closely, while the third, which was attended by all students, concerned material only indirectly related to the text. As a result, students in both conditions were exposed to essentially identical material. Students in the lecture condition could also obtain copies of the unit quizzes, although few did so. Course grades were determined by scores on two 45-item multiple-choice hourly exams, each covering half of the semester material (each worth 25%), and by a 90-item final exam over the entire course (worth 50%). These measures also served as the dependent variables. The experimental design employed a crossover technique in which one fourth of the students began with the contingency management method and then switched to lecture method at midsemester, while another fourth began with the lecture method and switched to contingency management. The other students stayed in the same condition throughout the semester, half under contingency management and half under the lecture method. On the last day of class, all students filled out an extensive questionnaire that assessed their opinions and attitudes about the teaching techniques. In addition to allowing for assessment of any progressive effects that the contingency management procedures might have had over time, the crossover design also permitted students to make meaningful comparisons of the two teaching methods, since half of the students experienced both methods in the same course. Although average test performance was only slightly higher under the contingency management condition, this difference occurred on each exam and was statistically reliable in each case. Further, the method did not interact with time, as it produced about a three-item advantage per half semester. On each of the three exams, teaching method accounted for between 5 and 8% of the total variance in test scores. Finally, attitude measures indicated that students experiencing half a semester of the contingency management procedures preferred them to the lecture technique, but that only those students with a full semester of contingency management rated the course significantly better than students in the full semester lecture course.     

Background sound pressure fluctuations (5 DB) from overhead ventilation systems increase subjective fatigue of university students during three-hour lectures.

During each of four successive sessions (once per week), 21 university students attended 3-hr. lectures. During alternative weeks the fans of the room's ventilation system were either on or off. When operating, they generated an average sound pressure that varied continuously between 60 and 65 dB. The dominant frequency of this 5-dB amplitude modulation of sound pressure was within the electroencephalographic range (5 Hz to 25 Hz). At the end of each hour of the lecture for each session each student estimated on 7-point summated rating scales fatigue (none to maximum) and concentration (poor to excellent). As a group, the students reported more fatigue during lectures when the fans were operating relative to lectures when the fans were not operating. This environmental effect explained about 30% of the variance in fatigue ratings and may be sufficient to affect adversely the attention of students within these settings.     

Using Intergroup Contact Theory to Reduce Stigma Against Transgender Individuals: Impact of a Transgender Speaker Panel Presentation

Sexual minorities experience significant stigma and prejudice. Much research has examined sexual stigma and prejudice impacting gay and lesbian individuals, but limited research has examined other sexual minorities, such as transgender persons or individuals whose gender identity or expression is incongruent with their assigned gender or anatomical sex. Research has found that interpersonal contact with sexual minorities is associated with lower sexual stigma and prejudice. Intergroup contact theory predicts that interaction between groups can reduce stereotyping and improve intergroup relationships. Using a randomized crossover design, this study compared the impact of exposure to a transgender speaker panel vs. a traditional transgender lecture presentation on transphobia. Results indicated greater immediate reductions of transphobia following the transgender speaker panel than traditional lecture.     

Perspective Taking as a Means of Reducing Negative Stereotyping of Individuals Who Speak English as a Second Language1

As a test of the hypothesis that perspective taking reduces stereotyping of individuals who speak English as a second language, 160 college students participated in a 2 × 2 factorial experiment. Participants heard an audio recording of either a native or non‐native speaker of English. Then, they wrote a paragraph about the speaker either with instructions to take the speaker's perspective or with no perspective‐taking instructions. Finally, they rated the speaker on characteristics related to ability and accomplishment. Overall, the participants rated the native speaker of English more highly than the non‐native speaker. However, supporting the hypothesis, participants instructed to take the perspective of the non‐native speaker rated her more highly than did participants not instructed to take her perspective.     

Student prejudice against gay male and lesbian lecturers

The authors examined whether gay men and lesbians are evaluated more negatively than individuals of unspecified sexual orientation when attributional ambiguity surrounds evaluations and whether they are evaluated similarly to unspecified others when no attributional ambiguity is present. One male and one female lecturer delivered either a strong or a weak lecture to students who either (a) believed that the lecturer was a gay man or a lesbian or (b) did not receive sexual orientation information. Contrary to predictions, the quality of the lecture did not influence the ratings of known gay male and lesbian lecturers, although lecture quality strongly influenced ratings of lecturers whose sexual orientation was unspecified. After strong lectures, participants rated known gay male and lesbian lecturers more negatively than they did lecturers whose sexual orientation was unspecified. After weak lectures, participants rated known gay male and lesbian lecturers more positively than they did the others. The authors discussed the possibility that students might moderate their ratings to avoid discriminating against gay and lesbian lecturers.     

Student Prejudice Against Gay Male and Lesbian Lecturers

Abstract

The authors examined whether gay men and lesbians are evaluated more negatively than individuals of unspecified sexual orientation when attributional ambiguity surrounds evaluations and whether they are evaluated similarly to unspecified others when no attributional ambiguity is present. One male and one female lecturer delivered either a strong or a weak lecture to students who either (a) believed that the lecturer was a gay man or a lesbian or (b) did not receive sexual orientation information. Contrary to predictions, the quality of the lecture did not influence the ratings of known gay male and lesbian lecturers, although lecture quality strongly influenced ratings of lecturers whose sexual orientation was unspecified. After strong lectures, participants rated known gay male and lesbian lecturers more negatively than they did lecturers whose sexual orientation was unspecified. After weak lectures, participants rated known gay male and lesbian lecturers more positively than they did the others. The authors discussed the possibility that students might moderate their ratings to avoid discriminating against gay and lesbian lecturers.     

Stereotyping and victim blaming of individuals with a laryngectomy

This study examined whether individuals with a laryngectomy are at risk for stereotyping and victim blaming. Undergraduate students (3 men and 41 women) volunteered to listen to a recording of a man who used tracheoesophageal speech or a man who was a typical adult speaker. A written vignette was provided prior to the listening activity to assess whether knowing that the speaker did or did not have a history of smoking affected the listeners' judgments of the speaker. Semantic differential data and qualitative responses indicated that participants did not report victim blaming; however, they did report that users of tracheoesophageal speech were less highly employable than typical adult speakers. Participants also indicated they relied on the vocal characteristics of speakers and used empathy- or experienced-based reactions to make judgments about users of such speech.     

Effects of expectations about evaluation and peer recommendations on students' ratings

Previous research on consumer satisfaction suggests that the anticipation of providing a later evaluation leads to more negative appraisals. Within the context of higher education, the current experiment focused on the evaluation of a presentation and its presenter. College students (35 men, 59 women) were randomly assigned to six conditions regarding evaluative expectations and peer recommendations. Students watched a brief video of a lecture on an educational topic and then evaluated the speaker and presentation. Anticipation of providing evaluations did not influence the subsequent evaluations; however, peers' positive recommendations led to more positive evaluations whereas negative recommendations led to more negative evaluations.     

Satisfaction with HyFlex Teaching and Law-abiding Leadership Education in Hong Kong University Students Under COVID-19

Since the early days of COVID-19, university teaching has changed from face-to-face format to online mode. With the gradual containment of the pandemic, there is no need for school lockdown. As a result, the teaching format has changed to HyFlex mode integrating both face-to-face and online modes. Obviously, it is necessary to understand the academic quality of life among students under the Hyflex teaching mode. In this paper, we report an evaluation study on a leadership subject in Hong Kong delivered via HyFlex teaching using a post-lecture evaluation strategy. In one of the lectures, we covered law-abiding leadership in university students, including abiding by the Hong Kong National Security Law. The post-lecture evaluation showed that students generally held positive views toward the HyFlex teaching and they perceived that the subject promoted their well-being indexed by psychosocial competence. Regarding the lecture on law-abiding leadership, students agreed that the lecture promoted their psychosocial competence, personal development, knowledge about law-abiding behavior and national security (including the Hong Kong National Security Law), and readiness to serve as socially responsible leaders. Positive perceptions of the lecture design, teacher performance, lecture content of law-abiding leadership and national security, and benefits positively predicted students’ overall satisfaction with the lecture on law-abiding leadership and national security.

     

TO NOD OR NOT TO NOD: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION AND STATUS IN FEMALE AND MALE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Gender studies show that women and men communicate using different styles, but may use either gender style if there are situational status differences. Considering the universal gesture of head nodding as a submissive form of expression, this study investigated head nodding by observing female and male college students in positions of subordinate and equal status. We observed head nodding ( N = 452) in classroom interactions between professor–student and student–student dyads. Overall, women nodded more than men and students nodded more to professors speaking than peers speaking. In addition, female and male students nodded equally to professors speaking, but men nodded less to peers speaking than did women. Thus, both men and women attended to the status and not the gender of the speaker. Future research using varying contexts should further examine the effects of dominance, context, and gender.     

Effects of Instructor Attractiveness on Learning

Although a considerable body of research has examined the impact of student attractiveness on instructors, little attention has been given to the influence of instructor attractiveness on students. This study tested the hypothesis that persons would perform significantly better on a learning task when they perceived their instructor to be high in physical attractiveness. To test the hypothesis, participants listened to an audio lecture while viewing a photograph of instructor. The photograph depicted either a physically attractive instructor or a less attractive instructor. Following the lecture, participants completed a forced choice recognition task covering material from the lecture. Consistent with the predictions; attractive instructors were associated with more learning. Finally, we replicated previous findings demonstrating the role attractiveness plays in person perception.     

Effects of Responding or Not Responding to Hecklers on Audience Agreement with a Speaker

The hypothesis that responding to hecklers would produce more agreement with a speaker than not responding, stemmed from commodity theory (Brock, 1968). One hundred twenty-one introductory speech students participated in what they were told was a "speech workshop" (not a psychology experiment). Two types of responding to live hecklers were used: In one, the speaker responded in a calm, relevant manner; in the other, she responded in an upset, irrelevant manner. In a third condition, the speaker did not respond to the heckles. There were two additional conditions: One in which the speaker responded to interruptions, and a further control in which there were neither heckles nor interruptions. In these five conditions, the speaker either argued for or against the audience's position. Regardless of whether or not the speaker's position agreed with the audience's, upset-irrelevant responding decreased the speaker's persuasiveness over making no response, while calm-relevant responding tended to enhance persuasiveness. Finally, in agreement with all other empirical studies, it was clearly shown that heckling, whether responded to or not, did not improve the speaker's effectiveness.     

Perception of spasmodic dysphonia speech in background noise

The purpose of this investigation was to judge whether the Lombard effect, a characteristic change in the acoustical properties of speech produced in noise, existed in adductor spasmodic dysphonia speech, and if so, whether the effect added to or detracted from speaker intelligibility. Intelligibility, as described by Duffy, is the extent to which the acoustic signal produced by a speaker is understood by a listener based on the auditory signal alone. Four speakers with adductor spasmodic dysphonia provided speech samples consisting of low probability sentences from the Speech Perception in Noise test to use as stimuli. The speakers were first tape-recorded as they read the sentences in a quiet speaking condition and were later tape-recorded as they read the same sentences while exposed to background noise. The listeners used as subjects in this study were 50 undergraduate university students. The results of the statistical analysis indicated a significant difference between the intelligibility of the speech recorded in the quiet versus noise conditions (F(1,49) = 57.80, p < or = .001). It was concluded that a deleterious Lombard effect existed for the adductor spasmodic dysphonia speaker group, with the premise that the activation of a Lombard effect in such patients may detract from their overall speech intelligibility.     

CONCEPTUAL MODELS OF LECTURE LEARNING: GUIDING METAPHORS AND MODEL-APPROPRIATE NOTETAKING PRACTICES

The metaphors that college students use to describe lecture learning may reflect conceptual models that direct, organize, and constrain the nature of the notetaking practices they prefer to use. Specific notetaking practices that would be dictated by the metaphors of "Sponge," "Tape Recorder," "Stenographer," "Code Breaker," "Reporter," and "Explorer" were rated as to frequency of use by 84 college students in an introductory psychology class. Subsequent ratings of the adequacy of each metaphor by these students were used to predict preferences for metaphor-appropriate notetaking practices in individual stepwise regression analyses. The perceived quality of a notetaking metaphor was predictive of the metaphor-appropriate notetaking practices reported by students for every metaphor except the Explorer metaphor. The discussion focuses on the role that students' conceptual models of lecture learning might play in facilitating or hindering efforts to improve their notetaking practices. The importance of assessing conceptual models as well as specific behavioral practices in the diagnosis of lecture-learning difficulties and the evaluation of training interventions is also considered.     

College students' choices of study strategies

For a closed-book examination, study strategies that could promote deep processing correlated positively with scores but were not likely to be used by the 46 students. For an open-book, open-note examination, strategies that might have led to confusion regarding the locations of material in the textbook and lecture notes correlated negatively with scores, although they were not likely to be used by the 58 students.     

Examination performance in lecture-discussion and personalized instruction courses

Students enrolled in a Psychology of Learning course were assigned to either a lecture section, one of two similar personalized instruction sections, or a fourth section that rotated across all three teaching procedures. All students took identical midterms and a final examination. After correcting test performance for differences in the cumulative grade point average of students in the four sections, examination performance of students in the personalized sections was found to be superior to that of students in the lecture section. An analysis of class section examination performance by item type revealed that students in the lecture section scored lower on all item types, but the greatest differences occurred on items that required written responses (essay and fill-in items) rather than recognition responses (multiple choice items). A gross analysis of student performance in the class rotated across the instructional procedures suggests that personalized instruction had its greatest impact on students with "average" to "poor" academic records.     

Access to handouts of presentation slides during lecture: Consequences for learning

Teachers often lecture with presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint; however, little research has examined the effects of this new technology on learning. One issue that arises is whether or not to give students copies of the lecture slides, and if so when. A survey documented that students prefer to receive lecture slides before class, whereas instructors were less pronounced in their preferences. Two experiments examined whether having handouts of the slides facilitated encoding of science lectures. Having access to handouts of the slides during lecture was associated with a number of benefits: less note‐taking (studies 1 and 2), less time needed to prepare for a final test (study 1), and better performance on the final test (study 2). Overall, receiving handouts before lecture helped efficient encoding of the lecture. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Student's metamemory knowledge about the impact of stereoscopic three‐dimensional presentations of science content

We investigated students' knowledge and beliefs about the impact of using three‐dimensional (3D) multimedia presentations. Students listened to a lecture about the ventricular system, which was presented alone (Experiment 1 only) or with a 3D or a 2D video illustrating the system. Afterwards, students judged how well they would perform on a criterion test. In Experiment 1, students judged that the 3D presentation would be superior to listening to the lecture alone (d = 0.81). Mean judgments were higher for the 3D than 2D presentation (d = 0.24), but this difference was not significant, so we estimated the effect size again. In Experiment 2, judgments were significantly higher after the 3D than 2D presentations (d = 0.40). Test performance was not significantly greater after the 3D than 2D presentations. A survey study again revealed that students believe 3D presentations are superior, and most students reported preferring them to 2D presentations.