Impact of Instructor Intervention on the Conceptual Understanding of Undergraduate Engineering Students Working in a Group

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: Examining Motivation and Cognition in Context (San Diego)

Abstract

This preliminary study examines interaction patterns between instructors and students and how they impact students’ conceptual understanding. Video data was drawn from four discussion sections in a required undergraduate engineering course involving two teaching assistants (TA) and four course assistants (CA). Emergent coding schemes were developed and were used to analyze how different instructors intervened in groups of students during different scenarios. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to understand the main contributors of interaction that led to improved conceptual understanding talk. The study showed that the TAs observation of students before intervention does not significantly affect their interaction with students or their conceptual understanding discourse. But there was significant effect of TA-student interaction on their conceptual understanding discourse.

Authors

• Robin Jephthah Rajarathinam, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Emma M. Mercier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign