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Learning by Doing: An Empirical Study of Active Teaching Techniques

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The article by Jana Hackathorn, Erin D. Solomon, Kate L. Blankmeyer, Rachel E.

Tennial, and Amy M. Garczynski (2011) “Learning by Doing: An Empirical Study of Active

Teaching Techniques” is devoted to the investigation of different teaching techniques and

their effectiveness in the classroom. The study focused on four main techniques – lecture,

demonstration, discussion, and in-class activities. Generally, these techniques are believed to

be useful in teaching and learning. Moreover, people tend to think that lecturing leads to

lower grades, while in-class activities are the best teaching method.

Lecturing, as a traditional way of teaching, including active presentation of

information in front of passive students, is considered to be not effective enough to promote

deep level of thinking and managing information. At the same time, active teaching with

student-centered approach is often stated as the best way of delivering information. Different

strategies and activities are involved in this process – media resources, games, personal

connections, etc. From a cognitive viewpoint, these techniques develop the processes of

higher order (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) and help to manipulate concepts and phenomena

in real situations. However, there is certain doubt in literature concerning the absolute success

of active teaching.

The effect of this or that teaching method can be evaluated from a cognitive

viewpoint, in terms of three levels of Bloom’s taxonomy – knowledge (ability to remember

the material), comprehension (ability to operate the material), and application (ability to

apply the material to real life situations and other spheres).

The study described in the article touches upon active teaching techniques used in the

same classroom throughout the semester of a course. The objects of the study were four main

active teaching techniques. Lecture is viewed as presenting some information for the class

with little interaction. It allows to present much information in a limited period of time,
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but considered too monotonous and boring, with students perceiving less information.

Demonstration is presenting the working principle of some phenomenon. Although it is more

interesting than a lecture, it is still not active enough and rather limited. Discussion is

described as the prototype of active teaching. It provides deeper learning and enables students

to express and share their ideas and feel more engaged in the learning process. In-class

activities are a technique involving all students in the classroom, who join in groups to solve

some problem. It lets students manipulate the phenomenon or concept in games, interviews,

and other activities.

Thus, the researchers have suggested five hypotheses regarding teaching techniques in

terms of their effect on three levels of cognition. The first hypothesis states that lecture is the

most effective method to get higher grades on the knowledge level. According to the 2 nd and

the 3rd hypotheses, demonstration and discussion would rather promote the development of

comprehension. In the 4th hypothesis the authors assume that an in-class activity facilitates

comprehension and application levels rather than knowledge. Finally, the researchers draw a

hypothesis that the best combination for teaching and learning is an in-class activity and

lecturing.

The study included six quizzes and four exams where students were tested at three

levels of cognition – knowledge, comprehension, and application. The participants were 51

students, both male and female, at the average age of 19.36. As the research went on, the

instructor applied various teaching techniques, and the assistant encoded them. At the end,

quizzes and exams were held, with measuring the results as completely correct/incorrect, as

well as partially creditable. To analyze the results, a Bonferroni correction was utilized.

The results of the research were quite surprising for the authors. First of all, the

lecture method turned out to be not so effective on the knowledge level – it has showed the

lowest results. But still the percentage of correct responses was rather high, so we cannot
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discredit this method as totally ineffective. Demonstration also didn’t confirm its

effectiveness in comprehension, but unexpectedly showed good results in application.

Discussion turned out to be rather risky and harmful way of learning, since it involves many

wrong ideas and incorrect information. At the same time, there were still many correct

responses, which mean that discussion is an effective way of studying. The 4 th hypothesis

with in-class activities was supported during the study – comprehension and application

levels were quite high, but knowledge level was much lower. Finally, the study supported the

suggestion that active techniques help to improve the learning process. Moreover, lecture and

in-class activities are not contradicting forces, but rather dichotomous, working together.

The study, though presenting interesting and surprising results, has a number of

limitations, which do not enable us to treat them as absolute and final. For example, the facts

that the students chose the class, that their major was psychology, that the instructor has a

good reputation among the students, the minimizing of potential experimenter effects – all

these factors also made a large contribution to the final outcome of the research and cannot be

ignored.

In conclusion, the authors say that there are many factors which influence the learning

process of each student, and active teaching techniques are among them as well, but they are

not the only. Neither technique can be the best or the worst, since each of the four methods

has shown rather high test results. We should say that each technique has its advantages at a

certain level of cognition (knowledge, comprehension, and application), but the utilization of

this or that technique for certain outcomes will be different in different classes. Finally, each

instructor and teacher can decide for himself or herself which technique is the best to apply in

that very class at that time and for particular purposes.

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References

Hackathorn, J., Solomon, E. D., Blankmeyer, K. L., Tennial, R. E., & Garczynski, A. M.

(2011). Learning by doing: An Empirical Study of Active Teaching Techniques. The

Journal of Effective Teaching, 11(2), 40-54. doi:10.1037/e683152011-599