What’s the Eberly Center reading and thinking about this month?

The Research and Scholarship Digest, published the first Monday of each month, consists of short summaries of recently peer-reviewed studies on teaching and learning topics. This digest offers a view into what we are reading and thinking about at the Eberly Center that:

• adds to our understanding of how students learn
• is potentially generalizable across teaching contexts in higher education
• provokes reflection on implications for our teaching and educational development practices.

We hope the readers of this digest will find it a useful resource for staying in-tune with the rapidly expanding education research literature.

Cerni, T., Lonciari, I., & Job, R. (2025). Learning by writing: The influence of handwriting and typing on novel word learning in typically developing readers and readers with dyslexia. Learning and Instruction, 98, 102119. 

This study investigates whether the motor demands of handwriting versus typing influence how middle‐school students with and without dyslexia learn new written words. In a classroom-style lab session, 36 Italian sixth- to eighth-graders (18 diagnosed with developmental dyslexia, 18 typical readers) learned 32 two-syllable nonwords—balanced for phoneme-to-grapheme regularity—by copying half via handwriting on a tablet (stylus input) and half via typing on a keyboard. Each item was presented with its uppercase form, image referent, and auditory pronunciation in four randomized learning blocks, during which writing fluency (Whole Response Duration) was recorded. In subsequent spelling-to-dictation and nonword-image mapping tasks, both accuracy and response times indexed orthographic and semantic retention. While typically developing readers achieved uniformly high performance regardless of modality, dyslexic students showed significantly greater spelling accuracy and faster image-word matching when they had learned by typing rather than handwriting—even after controlling for writing duration. These findings suggest that reducing graphomotor demands can free up cognitive resources for phoneme–grapheme integration in dyslexia, underscoring the importance of typing accommodations in writing-based assessments and highlighting a strategy to support inclusive vocabulary instruction across alphabetic languages .

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102119

Cooper, K. M., Brownell, S. E., Schussler, E. E., Downing, V. R., Gin, L. E., McDonald, K. K., ... & Trobiano, M. (2025). Meeting report: An interdisciplinary approach to addressing anxiety in undergraduate active learning biology courses. Advances in physiology education, 49(2), 405-415.

This paper presents a summary of a discussion conducted by a group funded by the National Science Foundation to address anxiety in college students who are enrolled in college biology courses that include active learning components. This group of psychiatrists, psychologists, student support specialists, biology education researchers, and biology instructors and students met to explore four questions related to anxiety, biology courses, and active learning: What underlies student anxiety in active learning? What aspects of active learning affect student anxiety? How do we maximize student experiences in active learning, considering anxiety? What should be the foci for future research related to anxiety in the context of active learning science courses? The group concluded that fear of failure, negative evaluation, and isolation contribute to anxiety and that intentional and transparent decision-making around implementing active learning components has the potential to reduce student anxiety. They call for more research to develop and test interventions to reduce anxiety and to study the effects of particular active learning components in biology classrooms.

https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00147.2024

Gurung, R. A. R., Kiefer, C., & White, H. (2025). Cushions don’t hurt: Assignment buffers, extensions, and learning. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Advance online publication.

This study investigated the use of flexible course deadlines in an introductory psychology course (total N =517), including the frequency of use for such flexibility and the relationship between when students turn in their work and course performance. The authors hypothesized that only a small portion of the students would utilize the flexibility, and that such use would not be associated with any differences in student performance. Over two terms, the instructors for multiple sections of a 10-week intro psychology course utilized a buffer system that allowed students to submit their work up to 48 hours later than the posted deadline without any penalty. In addition, an automated extension request system was used, such that if students were unable to submit their work by the buffer deadline, they could complete a Google Form requesting additional time to complete the assignment and indicate whether they needed extra support. Results showed that on average across all assignments, approximately 68% of students turned a given assignment in on time with the original deadlines, and 18.5% utilized the buffer system. Only about 2.5% of students utilized the extension system for any given assignment. Further results showed that performance on 2 of the 7 of the assignments was significantly better for on-time students compared to extension students, and performance on 1 assignment was significantly better for on-time students compared to buffer students. For exam scores, however, there were no significant differences between students who did not use the buffer or extension system compared to those who did for the corresponding assignments (i.e., for each assignment, the exam scores of on-time students were not different from scores of buffer/extension students). Some other nuanced results are discussed, along with qualitative findings relating to why buffers or extensions were used (e.g., health reasons, emergencies, general stress). The authors ultimately conclude that such flexibility modifications are not likely to be exploited and likely do not hurt students’ grades.

 https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000442

Johnson-Ojeda, V., Hill, L. B., Shin, S., York, A. M., & Frey, R. F. (2025). Measuring STEM Instructors’ Learning of and Growth in Inclusive Teaching: Development and Evaluation of the STEM Faculty Inclusive Teaching Survey (FITS). CBE—Life Sciences Education, 24(1), ar13. 

The authors developed and evaluated a new survey designed to measure instructor progress in inclusive teaching in STEM called the Faculty Inclusive Teaching Survey (FITS). Using multiple existing frameworks for professional growth and inclusive teaching, the authors arrived at four elements they believed to be important: Awareness and impact of identity, Confidence in inclusive teaching, Reflection on inclusive teaching, and Likelihood of implementing inclusive teaching. After reviewing existing instruments within STEM educational research, the authors concluded that a new instrument was needed in order to capture the four aforementioned elements. Using data from hundreds of participants in the Inclusive STEM Teaching Project (ISTP), the authors created an item pool and followed standard protocols for refining new psychometric instruments. The final FITS consists of 20 items that encompass the four areas of importance (items are available in the paper). Development details and potential implications are discussed.

https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.24-01-0016