Assessing Selected Teaching Techniques and Their Impact on Student Success in the Classroom

Abstract

Student success in college courses is important to students and faculty, though what variables predict student success are myriad and can be difficult to collect by faculty. Given the complex interaction of these variables, many of which are external to the classroom, a faculty member could be excused for thinking that the work of the faculty may not be impactful at all as to student success. However, this study considers several teaching techniques, including chunking course materials and assessments into smaller units, expanding practice homework assignments, and automating some course feedback to students through software, and identifies that increasing the number of exams that cover smaller portions of material appears to increase the average student pass rate of exams, but expanding homework and automating course/assignment feedback to students does not significantly impact student average exam grades. However, the use of intelligent agents did appear to negatively impact the rate at which students completed all exams in the course.