Ellen A. Sigler, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology

Julie Saam, Assistant Professor of Science Education

“Constructivist or Expository Instructional Approaches: Does Instruction Have an Effect on the Accuracy of Judgment of Learning?”

When Ellen Sigler was a college student, she had difficulty learning in some classes. Looking back on that time, the IU Kokomo assistant professor of educational psychology knows why she struggled with learning and studying in college. But it wasn’t until she took a course while pursuing her master’s and doctorate degrees that Sigler had her epiphany.

“I began to realize that the way a professor teaches has a lot to do with how the student learns, and I began to feel more confident about my ability to learn,” Sigler says. “I began to view myself differently when I had a teacher who taught differently.”

The approach to teaching is at the heart of Sigler’s research with Julie Saam, assistant professor of science education. The two are Mack Center Fellows, and they are in the middle of gathering research for their study, “Constructivist or Expository Instructional Approaches: Does Instruction Have an Effect on the Accuracy of Judgment of Learning?” Indiana University’s Mack Center for Inquiry on Teaching and Learning named Sigler and Saam as 2005-2006 Mack Fellows. The center presented each a $1,000 stipend to support their joint research.

Sigler and Saam developed their research ideas after Saam noticed students in her elementary mathematics methods class did not grasp knowledge construction because they did not understand what she meant when she asked them to develop a conceptual lesson plan. Saam approached Sigler and asked her if she was teaching the concept and she said yes. Sigler says that is when she realized she was not teaching conceptually. She was teaching in the same method she did not learn from in college, a lecture style. The pair decided to develop a study to determine if students learn better from a lecture-style teaching method, called expository teaching, or from hands-on interactive classes, called constructivist or discovery learning.

The purpose of the study is to determine if students have differing degrees of judgment of learning (JOL) based on the format of the instruction and if that JOL is related at all to the level of knowledge obtained. The sample comes from IU Kokomo students who are enrolled in P250 General Education Psychology fall 2004 and 2005 and spring 2005 and 2006 in the same curriculum.

In those classes, one lesson is taught in two different ways. The fall 2004 and 2005 students receive instruction by a single professor in an expository style. The spring 2005 and 2006 students receive instruction in a constructivist team-taught style. Although the style of the instruction is different, the material, terms, and concepts covered are identical. The classes cover the same topics throughout each semester. The sample will be about 120 students total, with 60 falling into each teaching method.

During each semester, at the end of the lesson, the students take a multiple-choice exam that covers material from the lesson presented. Students answer each multiple-choice question as usual. Following each multiple-choice question, the students make a JOL based on their confidence of responding to that question correctly.

The correct score percentage and the correct judgment percentage will be correlated to analyze the relationship between the percentage correct and ability to judge. All P250 groups will be analyzed by comparing average correct score percentages, average correct judgment percentages, and analyzing the relationship each group has in judging their own learning.

Although Sigler and Saam believe constructivist learning leads to more meaningful learning, Sigler says a recent study criticizes it, saying students might not learn as well in the environment because they cannot regulate their learning as well as they can in a more structured lecture environment.

Their study will disprove or agree with the previous finding, plus add another dimension. Sigler and Saam are investigating the students’ metacognition, which is their ability to monitor, regulate, and control their own learning processes within the two formats. They hope the data indicates that constructivist learning improves metacognitive skills.

Saam believes constructivist learning is better for students because it helps students retain more and makes them more confident. Confidence is important for learning whether it is taking an exam or a group project. “We want their anxiety level to be low because research already shows that they do better if their anxiety level is low, so if this approach shows that their anxiety level is low then that is something we’d want them to be—more confident—and if they are more confident then they are more likely to retain information longer,” Saam says.

Sigler says the benefit of constructivist teaching can be seen in other countries. While American students will work out 500 multiplication problems, students in countries like Japan will work on one problem and the student will learn why it works so the student can figure out the problem alone.

“The child will be able to figure it out on their own because they have the concept behind it,” Sigler says.

That is why foreign students surpass Americans in math and science. “Our whole goal is to get our education students to teach conceptually,” Sigler says.