The effects of peer instruction on students’ conceptual learning and motivation

When the results were evaluated in terms of the students’ conceptual learning, peer instruction in the two-year college classroom was found to be more effective at developing students’ conceptual understanding than traditional didactic lecture method. The use of PI in an algebra-based introductory physics course did not have an impact on the students’ motivation (value and affective component of MSLQ). Students may have failed to see the connection or relevance of the course to their own particular academic major. FCI designed to connect the content to students’ own majors were not introduced until the end of the study by simple inquiry, their duration may not have been enough to make a change in the value of students’ perception toward the course and thus their motivation. The interest, meaning, and relevance are measures of intrinsic motivation (Pintrich & Garcia, 1995), PI used in this manner may thus have failed to generate the necessary interest and value of perception required to promote motivation change.

For the affective component of the motivation scale of MSLQ, no significant change was detected between the treatment and control groups. To explain these results, it may be relevant to consider the behavior of the students enrolled in the course and the links between motivation and achievement. PI, although resulting in greater achievement gains in students, may not have been able to address students’ worry and concern about overtaking exam. Paulsen and Feldman (1999) determined that students who have naive beliefs about learning and knowledge were more likely to be less motivated and have higher levels of test anxiety (Allen, Duch, & Groh, 1996) than were students with more sophisticated beliefs. Non-major students often have little science background and come from various majors. They may have viewed the content from a less sophisticated view because of their lack of science background; however, more work needs to be done in this area.

Besides, even though PI did not significantly benefit students’ motivation, its use did improve their achievement and self-efficacy. These findings imply that PI should be directed more at making the content more relevant and meaningful in the future, possibly with more duration and frequency. PI resulted in an improvement of students’ self-efficacy, but what exactly is self-efficacy and how does it related to PI? Self-efficacy is characterized by one’s beliefs about behavioral outcomes, coupled with expectations about one’s ability to engage in, perform, persist in, and be successful at a particular behavior (Allen et al., 1996; Bandura, 1977; Hemenway, Straits, Wilke, & Hufnagel, 2001), in this case science. Because many non-majors students come to the courses with negative attitudes and low-efficacy, it is imperative to nurture feelings of confidence from the beginning.

The use of PI in present study was reported to significantly increase or change students’ science self-efficacy by promoting a belief in their own to do science and be successful in learning about it. PI used were indeed designed to help students gain confidence in and had control over their abilities to learn physics and be successful in doing so, but PI was also introduced gradually over the course of the study period based on a ConcepTest continuum. This was to enable students to see the results of their efforts and receive feedback in a relatively risk-free environment and thus help them develop their self-efficacy over the course of the entire study period. Because students were active participants in the learning process, self-efficacy was improved compared with those students who experienced traditional didactic lectures. What these findings suggest is that self-efficacy and classroom success are linked and that an individual’s level of engagement in a task and willingness to persist at the task are indicators of success (Paulsen & Feldman, 1999; Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993a).