1. PHIL 148: Improving DFW Rates and Learning Outcomes with a Hybrid Course
John Symons, Department of Philosophy
With assistance from Josh Potter (CTE) and Ning Liu (CTE)
This work was supported by a C21 Course Transformation Grant, with funding provided by the Office of Academic Affairs.
Course Description
Course Structure
Establishing Baselines for Measuring the Intervention
PHIL 148: Reason and Argument is KU’s only course dedicated solely to teaching critical thinking and fulfills KU Core Goal 1 (critical thinking and quantitative literacy) and Goal 3 (developing a background of knowledge across fundamental areas of study). The course teaches critical thinking through an introduction to the theory and practice of logical analysis with special emphasis on the logical appraisal of everyday arguments.
PHIL 148 teaches students to assess arguments properly, to avoid and detect fallacies, to construct rationally convincing arguments, and to evaluate statistical evidence and arguments properly.
It is offered in person in a large lecture format and also as an online course.
I would like students to arrive at lecture ready to deepen their understanding of two core ideas or skills per session.
Prior to coming to class they would have read the relevant chapter for the week, watched the videos and answered the associated quizzes.
Prior to lecture, results from quizzes would allow me to see where students were
mastering the material and where I need to deploy my efforts in class to help them improve. Hybrid teaching requires that I teach more flexibly than in a traditional lecture setting.
In class, I plan to have a graded group activity as well as an individual, graded activity. The course will continue to have mid-term and final examinations.
I plan to use many of these materials in the online version of this course, as well.
CTE had access to data from 1378 students who took the course between Fall and Spring students in this sample fell into the DFW rate.
The overall DFW rate is 12.8% for this sample.
The sample includes online and in-person iterations of the course taught by a range of instructors.
Some questions about the existing data
Is there a relationship between earning a “C” or better in PHIL 148 and having a higher GPA?
Is there a relationship between earning a “C” or better in PHIL 148 and majoring in a “STEM” versus “Non-STEM” majors?
Yes. Students who earned a “C” or better in PHIL 148 tend to have a higher GPA (Mean = , SD = .53), compared to those who did not (Mean = 2.57, SD = .55), t (1348) = , p < .001
Yes. Students from STEM majors (Mean = , SD = 1.05) tend to have higher grades in PHIL 148 than those from non-STEM majors (Mean = 2.81, SD = 1.24), t (1142) = 5.316, p
<.001.
Course Redesign
Do female and/or minority-status students fare better, worse, or the same in PHIL 148 as their male and majority-status peers?
PHIL 148 is a high enrollment course with high (but improving) DFW rates. In previous years the DFW rate has been as high as 26.4%. While DFW rates have improved steadily over the past three years, I wish to improve them more dramatically.
Project Plan: To convert PHIL 148 into a hybrid course and an improved online course. Materials will include:
A series of around minute videos
Comprehension quizzes accompanying each video
15 chapters of associated text (four videos and quizzes each)
Purpose: Improve DFW rates, while maintaining rigor and improving learning outcomes for critical thinking.
Timeline: The majority of this project will be completed during Summer 2018 in time for the Fall semester.
Gender
Mean Grade SD
Female
2.85
1.24
Male
2.89
1.20
Other (unavailable)
---
Ethnicity
Mean Grade SD N
ASIAN 1
2.79
1.34 72
AFRICAN AMERICAN 2
2.33
1.28 63
HISPA 3
2.60
1.31
108
INTL 4
3.67
0.62 47
MULTI, NSPEC, & AMINC 5
3.03
1.06
111
WHITE 0
2.89
1.21
976
Total
p < .001
2.87
1.22
1377
Assessing Results and Background Data
The Department of Philosophy asked CTE for assistance understanding how student success in this course (C or higher) relates to future success, major choice, etc. Where possible, the department was especially interested in impact for high DFW rates on retention, major choice, and GPA. This information is useful for comparing DFW trends and interventions and to evaluate the success of the course redesign project.
GENDER: The performance of female students (Mean = 2.85, SD = 1.24) in PHIL 148 do not significantly differ from the performance of their male peers (Mean = 2.89, SD = 1.20), t (1375) =
-.648, p = .517.
ETHNICITY: The ANOVA indicated that students’ grades are significantly different from each other in terms of their ethnicity groups, F (5, 1371) = 8.26, p <.001.