Examining Evidence-Based Teaching Practices in Gateway Courses

Every year, more than a half million college students enroll in an introductory statistics course they have to pass with an A, B, or C to earn their degree. And almost a third of them don’t succeed, getting a lower grade or dropping the course. They say every system produces the outcomes it was designed to produce. At Digital Promise, we believe American higher education can do better, and our research with 63 undergraduate statistics classes—all using a digital curriculum, practice, and assessment system developed by Lumen Learning—points the way toward moving the needle on gateway course success rates.

Rather than replacing instructors with learning systems students use independently, this effort positioned courseware as a resource for teaching and learning that would be part of a blended course, including face-to-face class sessions with instructors. Our findings support the importance of socioemotional supports for learning and the link between better teaching practices and improved course success rates.

Prior research has identified a number of instructional strategies that improve learning outcomes in both experimental and field studies:

• Instructional Transparency – Providing a clear description of course content, learning objectives, and criteria to be used in assessing student work
• Fostering a Sense of Belonging – Practices enabling all students to feel that they and their unique background are welcome in the course
• Building on Prior Knowledge – Cues that activate students’ background knowledge and experiences with relevance to course content
• Individual Active Learning – Practices that ask the student to construct and/or apply knowledge
• Formative Assessment – Opportunities to practice skills and receive timely, targeted feedback
• Collaborative Active Learning – Practices calling on students to construct/apply knowledge collaboratively with peers
• Scaffolding Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning – Practices that help students take control of the learning process and learn how to be better learners
• Data-Informed Instruction – Use of near real-time student learning data to inform teaching

Unfortunately, most college faculty do not receive training or coaching on how to teach, and they may or may not be familiar with these research-backed strategies.

We asked students in statistics classes about the frequency with which specific practices linked to these strategies were used in their courses. More than 1,800 students—over half of whom identified with a marginalized ethnic or racial group, came from a low-income household, or both—responded to our survey. We used the students’ survey responses to classify the 63 statistics classes in terms of the degree to which research-based practices were used.

In classes where more of the evidence-based practices were employed, students expressed stronger liking and valuing of statistics and a stronger self-appraisal of their understanding of statistics. Moreover, students in these classes were more likely to earn an A, B, or C in the course, even after correcting for differences between classes in terms of average student prior achievement. Similarly, on a test of conceptual knowledge of statistics administered in all the classes, students in classes where more evidence-based teaching practices were used got higher scores than would be predicted based on their prior achievement.

Our recent report describes these findings and provides examples of instructional practices in classes where student course engagement and academic outcomes were both high. Common themes across these classes included

• • transparent guidance for students about what to do and why it mattered,
  • repeated attention to students’ mindsets and statistics anxiety,
  • active learning structures that supported participation, and
  • deliberate efforts to emphasize statistics understanding rather than calculations alone.

We know that learning technology is not a “silver bullet” that inevitably leads to better outcomes. Improved student engagement and achievement result from the combination of equity-centered courseware and instructor implementation of EBT practices.

Want to learn more about evidence-based teaching practices and improving gateway statistics courses?

• Explore findings from a report on Lessons From Implementing Courseware in Gateway Statistics Courses.
• Hear directly from undergraduate students about what it’s like taking introductory statistics courses.
• Check out these case studies on designing gateway statistics and chemistry courses.
• Read more research on combining courseware and research-based teaching practices to improve Introductory Statistics course outcomes for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds