Several studies have highlighted the positive effects that active learning may have on student engagement and performance. However, the influence of active learning strategies is mediated by several factors, including the nature of the learning environment and the cognitive level of in-class tasks. These factors can affect different dimensions of student engagement such as the nature of social processing in student groups, how knowledge is used and elaborated upon by students during in-class tasks, and the amount of student participation in group activities. In this study involving four universities in the US, we explored the association between these different dimensions of student engagement and the cognitive level of assigned tasks in five distinct general chemistry learning environments where students were engaged in group activities in diverse ways. Our analysis revealed a significant association between task level and student engagement. Retrieval tasks often led to a significantly higher number of instances of no interaction between students and individualistic work, and a lower number of knowledge construction and collaborative episodes with full student participation. Analysis tasks, on the other hand, were significantly linked to more instances of knowledge construction and collaboration with full group participation. Tasks at the comprehension level were distinctive in their association with more instances of knowledge application and multiple types of social processing. The results of our study suggest that other factors such as the nature of the curriculum, task timing, and class setting may also affect student engagement during group work.

Despite recent interest in online learning, systematic comparisons of online learning environments with traditional classroom environments are limited, particularly in the sciences. Here, we report on a systematic comparison of an online and face-to-face classroom for a sophomore-level, lecture-only introductory inorganic chemistry course that is designed for students pursuing a chemistry major or minor. The online group consisted of three sections of students enrolled in Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry during two 8 week summer terms and one 4 week winter term. The face-to-face group consisted of two sections of students enrolled in Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry during two 15 week semesters. Both groups of students completed ten common exam questions, and a validated and reliable measure of their attitudes toward chemistry (Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory Version 2: ASCIv2). Students in the online course and face-to-face course did not differ in their performance on the common exam questions, course grade distribution, or attitudes toward chemistry. Although few studies have compared online and face-to-face learning environments in the physical sciences, our results are consistent with the idea that students who complete an online course fare just as well as those who attend face-to-face classes.

Student-centered instruction allows students to take ownership over their learning in the classroom. However, these settings do not always promote productive engagement. Using discourse analysis, student engagement can be analyzed based on how they are interacting with each other while completing in-class group activities. Previous analyses of student engagement in science settings have used methods that do not capture the intricacies of student group interactions such as the flow of conversation and nature of student utterances outside of argumentation or reasoning. However, these features are important to accurately assess student engagement. This study proposes a tiered analytical framework and visualization scheme for analyzing group discussion patterns that allow for a detailed analysis of student discourse moves while discussing scientific topics. This framework allows a researcher to see the flow of an entire conversation within a single schematic. The Student Interaction Discourse Moves framework can be used to extend studies using discourse analysis to determine how student groups work through problems.

A variety of research studies reveal the advantages of actively engaging students in the learning process through collaborative work in the classroom. However, the complex nature of the learning environment...

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