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.

Asher, M. W., Sana, F., Koedinger, K. R., & Carvalho, P. F. (2025). Practice with feedback versus lecture: Consequences for learning, efficiency, and motivation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Advance online publication.

The high rate of attrition in STEM majors often stems from challenging gateway courses and significant time demands on students, particularly those balancing outside responsibilities. Decades of research show students learn most effectively through active practice rather than passive listening. But do lectures need to precede active learning, or can focusing solely on practice with feedback be more efficient? Recent research, using statistics lessons like "measures of central tendency" and "multiple regression," highlights a compelling answer: practice with feedback significantly boosts learning efficiency. Studies found participants learned more than twice as quickly through practice-only conditions compared to traditional lecture-based methods, without compromising learning effectiveness or the ability to generalize concepts. This approach frees up valuable student time, a critical factor for retention in demanding STEM fields. However, the research also reveals a crucial nuance: while highly efficient, direct practice without prior instruction can undermine motivation for students who are less confident or less interested in a topic. Lectures, or combined instruction, appear to be motivationally important for these students, promoting interest and beliefs about the material's usefulness.

For the Eberly Center, this means we can greatly enhance learning efficiency by prioritizing practice with feedback. Yet, careful instructional design is essential to ensure this efficiency doesn't come at the cost of student motivation, especially for those who might find immediate problem-solving daunting. Strategic implementation can help us leverage active learning's power while supporting all students.

https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000205

Claro, S., Paredes, V., Cruz, G., & Cabezas, V. (2025). Do Students Improve Their Academic Achievement When Assigned to a Growth Mindset Teacher?. Educational Researcher.

The authors analyzed data from Chile’s (k-12) educational system to assess whether having a growth mindset teacher is associated with academic achievement. The dataset includes questionnaire data from teachers (n = 24,636) with mindset measurements from 8th and 10th grade math, science, and language teachers. These teachers were divided into either growth or fixed mindset categories by splitting the data at the midline of the measure (i.e., 3 on a 6 point scale). This categorization ended up with 89% of teachers being categorized as growth mindset. Their model was used to predict student standardized test scores as a combination of teacher characteristics and past academic performance (student n = 292,960). Results showed an overall significant association between teacher growth mindset and student test scores of 0.02 standardized units (i.e., 0.02 standard deviations). This effect was found to be larger in schools with a higher proportion of low-income students. Other heterogeneity findings related to student characteristics are discussed, along with possible mechanisms for this observed impact.

https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X251333775

Salvatore, S., White, C., & Podowitz-Thomas, S. (2024). “Not a cookie cutter situation”: how neurodivergent students experience group work in their STEM courses. International Journal of STEM Education, 11(1), 47. 

In this study, the authors sought to understand how neurodivergent students in undergraduate STEM courses experience group work, including in-class group work in both lecture and laboratory courses and out-of-class group projects. Undergraduate students who had taken at least two STEM courses with significant group coursework were recruited for semi-structured interviews through disability service offices at seven institutions, including three R1 institutions and two minority-serving institutions. Interviews were conducted with 22 participants and thematically coded to identify themes; researchers then analyzed the data through the lens of a social-relational framework of disability. All participants experienced significant barriers to effective participation in group work related to personal characteristics that they associated with their disability (for example, focus, attention, time management, or organization, etc.) and to characteristics of group dynamics (communication, feelings of belonging, leadership roles, etc.). Although students recognized the benefits of group work, the majority suggested that instructors should make adjustments to the implementation of group work, including assignments, expectations, and organization, to lower barriers for neurodivergent students.