Initial Publication Date: April 1, 2016

Assessing Integrative Learning

Faculty who receive HHMI-supported curriculum development grants use the paired learning environment survey when they pilot their revised curriculum. Here we report the results from ten courses that used this instrument from fall 2013 to winter 2015 with 161 student responses.

The findings from the paired learning environment survey (Fig. 2) demonstrate that students perceived integrative learning strategies were being used in these courses and that faculty reported the intention to use such strategies. Overall, students perceived greater frequency of these approaches in the classroom than faculty reported. These differences were particularly pronounced in the strategies related to student self-efficacy where students reported that faculty promoted self-efficacy approaches with greater frequency than faculty themselves reported. Examples include: found ways to help students answer own questions (3.9 students mean versus 2.9 faculty mean); encouraged student-faculty interaction (3.6 vs. 2.3); gave opportunities for students to set and achieve goals (2.2 vs. 3.5).