Interteaching: The Effects of Quality Points on Exam Scores

Abstract

Although previous studies have found interteaching to be an effective alternative to traditional methods of instruction, few studies have examined which of its components contribute to its effectiveness. In the current study, we examined whether manipulating quality points had an effect on our students' exam scores. In two sections of an undergraduate general psychology course, we used interteaching but alternated between quality points and no quality points several times throughout the semester; we also counterbalanced the order of presentation across sections. We found that quality points did not have an effect on exam scores.

A Point Contingency for Homework Submission in the Graduate School Classroom

“…Thus, it is likely that the students completed the homework assignments during no-points weeks, but with no contingency in place for their submission, the students did not expend the effort to prepare their assignments in a format suitable for submission. Guring (2003) reported that undergraduate students rated homework questions as among the most helpful study tools (see also Saville & Zinn, 2009). Unlike the undergraduate students in Ryan and Hemmes, the graduate student participants in this study had lengthy histories during which certain study skills had been selected and refined.…”

Interteaching: Bringing Behavioral Education Into the 21st Century

“…Saville and Zinn (2009) examined the quality-points component of interteaching by comparing the exam scores of students in two sections of an introductory psychology course. Saville and Zinn alternated between interteaching with quality points and interteaching without quality points, counterbalanced across sections, and awarded quality points by comparing the essay answers of students who completed the pair discussions together (see Boyce & Hineline, 2002).…”

“…Sidman also discussed the importance of systematic replication, in which a researcher examines whether a phenomenon occurs under conditions that differ from those prevailing in the original experiment. Although we have used interteaching in a number of our undergraduate and graduate courses, the researchers who have thus far published their findings on interteaching have used relatively small convenience samples consisting of introductory psychology students (see Saville et al, 2005;Saville & Zinn, 2009), students in undergraduate research methods courses (Saville et al, 2006, Study 2), or students in a graduate-level special education course (Saville et al, 2006, Study 1). It would therefore be interesting to examine whether interteaching produces similar results in other types of psychology courses-large, survey-level courses; smaller, capstone-level courses; graduate-level seminars; and even distance-learning courses.…”

“…As mentioned previously, Saville and Zinn (2009) examined the quality-points component of interteaching by giving points contingent on essay performance. They found that systematically manipulating quality points across two sections of an introductory psychology course did not have an effect on exam scores.…”

Preliminary Analysis Of Interteachings Frequent Examinations Component In The Community College Classroom

“…The final component is the frequent exam as the primary measure of learning in the interteaching classroom (for a more detailed description of interteaching, see Boyce & Hineline, 2002;Saville, Lambert, & Robertson, 2011). Interteaching component analyses research has focused on the inclusion of prep guides (Saville, Zinn, & Serdikoff, 2008), reinforcing properties of quality points (Saville & Zinn, 2009), and the types of prep guides used, specifically instructor-created prep guides or prep guides where students generate their own questions (Cannella-Malone, Axe, & Parker, 2009). These studies have begun to uncover the underlying mechanisms making interteaching effective (Saville et al, 2011).…”