I have done some of my research in the scholarship of teaching and learning. While this influenced how I taught my classes, it is pedagogical research. I have completed three major pedagogical studies.

Clickers in the Classroom

Over the course of several years, collaborators from the Harding University Cannon-Clary School of Education and I studied the effect of using clickers on achievement on exams and quizzes in science classrooms. The conclusions were that while students seemed to enjoy using the clickers and said they learned more, they did not in fact perform better on quizzes or exams.

This work was published in the Journal of Science Teaching, a peer-reviewed top-tier journal in science education. It was presented at several conferences including one of the top conferences in chemistry education, the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education.

Just-in-Time Teaching and Peer Instruction in Biochemistry

In Biochemistry I, I employed Just-in-Time teaching and Peer Instruction techniques as discussed in New Teaching Methods. Students scored statistically significantly higher on 5 of 8 exams over two semesters. Analysis of surveys also showed that students appreciated the technique.

While this research has not yet been published, it has been presented at several prestigious conferences including the American Chemical Society national conference and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education.

Prompt Types and Knowledge Construction

In the third project in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, I worked with an ACU undergraduate research assistant and colleagues at the Harding University Cannon-Clary School of Education. We studied the effect of structured divergent prompts on knowledge construction in discussions during an online course. We found that that two of the three Structured Divergent prompts (focal and brainstorm) yielded significantly higher levels of knowledge construction as compared to Convergent prompts.

A peer-reviewed article was published in the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. This article included an undergraduate researcher co-author. The undergraduate research student presented the research at the 2014 ACU Undergraduate Research Festival.