Incorporating higher order thinking and deep learning in a large, lecture-based human physiology course: can we do it?

Hobbins, Justine; Murrant, Coral L.; Snook, Laelie A.; Tishinsky, Justine M.; Ritchie, Kerry

doi:10.1152/advan.00126.2019

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…General R-SPQ-2 F results from this study indicate that the majority of students had higher DA scores compared to SA scores. This aligns with the findings of the vast majority of studies that have investigated learning approaches of students enrolled in undergraduate STEM or graduate medical programs (Mattick et al, 2004 ; Newton & Martin, 2013 ; Rajaratnam et al, 2013 ; Mirghani et al, 2014 ; Mogre & Amalba, 2014 ; Shaik et al, 2017 ; Hobbins et al, 2020 ; Johnson et al, 2021 ). This differs from the findings of both Newble & Gordon ( 1985 ) and Martenson ( 1986 ) who, using the Lancaster Approaches to Learning Inventory, found that first-year medical students tended to have higher SA than DA scores.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…While several studies have attempted to better understand this relationship (Pandey & Zimitat, 2007 ; Rajaratnam et al, 2013 ; Hobbins et al, 2020 ; Newton & Martin, 2013 ; Bansal et al, 2021 ), many fail to account for confounding factors, such as student aptitude. Additionally, most studies have not employed a study design that directly assesses whether students who take a DA to learning outperform those who take a SA on higher-order examination questions, particularly when they are delivered in multiple-choice format or are administered as part of a practical examination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Relationship between learning approach, Bloom’s taxonomy, and student performance in an undergraduate Human Anatomy course

Thompson

Lake

2023

Adv in Health Sci Educ

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Researchers have long been interested in understanding how different learning approaches impact learning outcomes. Learning approaches are often conceptualized as a dichotomy of superficial and deep, and learning outcomes are typically viewed on a cognitive scale that ranges from lower- to higher-order. While there appears to be an inherent relationship between learning approach and outcomes where superficial approaches lead to lower-order learning and deep approaches result in higher-order learning, this concept is not well documented. The purpose of this study is to better understand this relationship by evaluating whether student performance on higher- and lower-order examination questions is influenced by the approach a student takes when studying. To investigate this, survey and examination data were collected from an upper-level undergraduate Human Anatomy course at the University of Cincinnati. Results indicate that, on average, students in the course favored a deep approach to learning. The impact that learning approach had on examination performance was investigated using a series of analytical approaches, which revealed that students who took a deep approach to learning performed marginally better on both higher- and lower-order examination questions in lecture and practical examination settings. These results are contextualized within the literature, which highlights the need for more research surrounding the interrelatedness and dependency of categories within both learning approaches and cognitive levels.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship between learning approach, Bloom’s taxonomy, and student performance in an undergraduate Human Anatomy course

Thompson

Lake

2023

Adv in Health Sci Educ

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“…Different working definitions of these terms in a research setting is a threat to communicative and interpretive validity and may lead to lack of transferability of findings (6,10). Our results indicate threats to the communicative and interpretive validity of prior work in biology education research and perhaps to discipline based education research, more broadly (38). Previous work from our laboratory supports this claim.…”

Section: Implications For Participant/researcher Interactionscontrasting

confidence: 46%

An early exploration of undergraduate student definitions of learning, memorizing, studying, and understanding

Johnson

Gallagher

2021

Advances in Physiology Education

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Biology education research often utilizes the terms learning, memorizing, studying, and understanding without providing their specific definition. When definitions have been provided, they are often inconsistent across publications. As part of a larger research study, we interviewed 11 participants on 2 occasions while they were enrolled in a sequence of anatomy and physiology courses. Part of the interview protocol asked participants for their definitions of learning, memorizing, studying, and understanding. Definitions were isolated from the transcript, deidentified, and sorted by qualitative similarities. The research team developed code categories and assigned definitions to these groups after discussing coding differences. Multiple definition groups emerged for each term. Learning, memorizing, and studying definition groups highlighted processes, outcomes, or a combination of both a process and outcome. Understanding definition groups focused solely on an outcome. These findings highlight the need for communication between students and instructors with regard to term usage. In addition, future research in biology and physiology education should be careful to provide working definitions of these terms to ensure communicative and interpretive validity and to promote transferability and repeatability of findings.

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“…Even if one accepts the results of the survey as reliable based on this standard, we nonetheless have reason to believe that the two factors measured by the instrument do not truly represent deep and surface approaches to learning, calling into question the validity of the instrument, at least with this population and potentially with other populations as well. This is cause for concern given the continued usage of the R-SPQ-2F in education research [7,11,12,41,42], and in A&P education research in particular [43].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy & physiology students

2021

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The 20-question Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F), which is frequently used to categorize student learning approaches as either deep or surface, was administered to three sections of Anatomy & Physiology (A&P) courses at a highest research university in the southeastern United States as part of a larger research project. Two hundred thirty-one (231) respondents completed the full survey and 11 participants were recruited to a comparative case study. Initial review of interview transcripts raised concerns about the validity of the R-SPQ-2F results with the population of interest. Interview transcripts were coded using a priori codes corresponding to the R-SPQ-2F items, and qualitative and quantitative results were then triangulated. Additional survey responses were collected in a subsequent semester and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed using the complete responses from 381 students. The CFA yielded similar or better measures of reliability and fit to the two-factor structure as those in previously reported work by other authors. Nonetheless, findings from triangulation suggest that the R-SPQ-2F was not able to group students by deep and surface approaches to learning in the context of an undergraduate A&P course. In addition, six interviews (3 deep, 3 surface) demonstrated a new theme of surface leading to deep with participants indicating that memorization was necessary for the purpose of gaining a full understanding of the course material. This mixed method analysis calls into question whether the results are valid for separating student approaches into the previously published descriptions of deep and surface approaches. The finding of the surface leading to deep orientation, which may align with previous descriptions of an achieving approach, has significant implications for both research and instruction, as memorizing and other “surface” strategies are often minimized and discouraged, yet are an important step in student learning.

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Incorporating higher order thinking and deep learning in a large, lecture-based human physiology course: can we do it?

Cited by 15 publications

References 35 publications

Relationship between learning approach, Bloom’s taxonomy, and student performance in an undergraduate Human Anatomy course

Relationship between learning approach, Bloom’s taxonomy, and student performance in an undergraduate Human Anatomy course

An early exploration of undergraduate student definitions of learning, memorizing, studying, and understanding

Validity concerns with the Revised Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in undergraduate anatomy & physiology students

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