Responding to incorrect ideas: science graduate teaching assistants’ operationalization of error framing and undergraduate students’ perception

Abstract

Background In college science laboratory and discussion sections, student-centered active learning strategies have been implemented to improve student learning outcomes and experiences. Research has shown that active learning activities can increase student anxiety if students fear that they could be negatively evaluated by their peers. Error framing (i.e., to frame errors as natural and beneficial to learning) is proposed in the literature as a pedagogical tool to reduce student anxiety. However, little research empirically explores how an instructor can operationalize error framing and how error framing is perceived by undergraduate students. To bridge the gap in the literature, we conducted a two-stage study that involved science graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and undergraduate students. In stage one, we introduced cold calling (i.e., calling on non-volunteering students) and error framing to 12 chemistry and 11 physics GTAs. Cold calling can increase student participation but may increase student anxiety. Error framing has the potential to mitigate student anxiety when paired with cold calling. GTAs were then tasked to rehearse cold calling paired with error framing in a mixed-reality classroom simulator. We identified GTA statements that aligned with the definition of error framing. In stage two, we selected a few example GTA error framing statements and interviewed 13 undergraduate students about their perception of those statements. Results In the simulator, all the GTAs rehearsed cold calling multiple times while only a few GTAs made error framing statements. A thematic analysis of GTAs’ error framing statements identified ways of error indication (i.e., explicit and implicit) and framing (i.e., natural, beneficial, and positive acknowledgement). Undergraduate student interviews revealed specific framing and tone that are perceived as increasing or decreasing student comfort in participating in classroom discourse. Both undergraduate students and some GTAs expressed negative opinions toward responses that explicitly indicate student mistakes. Undergraduate students’ perspectives also suggest that error framing should be implemented differently depending on whether errors have already occurred. Conclusion Error framing is challenging for science GTAs to implement. GTAs’ operationalizations of error framing in the simulator and undergraduate students’ perceptions contribute to defining and operationalizing error framing for instructional practice. To increase undergraduate student comfort in science classroom discourse, GTAs can use implicit error indication. In response to students’ incorrect answers, GTAs can positively frame students’ specific ideas rather than discussing broadly how errors are natural or beneficial.

Physics Graduate Teaching Assistant Use of Error Framing in Recitations and Laboratories

“…In contrast to the established benefits of error framing, in previous work, students identified parts of example error framing statements that decreased their comfort [8]. For example, students disliked when GTAs started by directly commenting on how the student was wrong, focused on the student's mistakes, hedged when acknowledging the student's ideas as understandable, or used certain negative language such as "mistake" or "error".…”

“…GTAs participated in a professional development session where they practiced using various pedagogical techniques, including error framing [8,9,12]. After this training, the GTAs were observed in select classes throughout the rest of the semester.…”

“…Prior research by members of the team established common themes related to the implementation of error framing [8]. These themes and codes were utilized for this analysis.…”

“…Prior research by the team characterized the error framing statements made by GTAs during their professional development in a mixed reality simulated classroom [8]. However, GTAs' implementation of trained pedagogical techniques in their classroom varies from how they were trained [6,9].…”

Individual variation in undergraduate student metacognitive monitoring and error detection during biology model evaluation

“…University instructors can be instrumental in providing opportunities for students to critically examine their knowledge and the reasons they know it. Importantly, instructors must normalize having, identifying, and learning from errors since we all possess and frequently inhibit many of the same misconceptions our students hold (Masson et al, 2014;Allaire-Duquette et al, 2021;Wan et al, 2023). Identifying errors in models, and the inferences about our own internal models, requires comparison that is time-intensive and effortful and must be made explicit for students.…”