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37Vol. 42, No. 5, 2013

Retaining Students in STEM Majors

students to think that their engineering

courses would be poorly taught, and

therefore they contemplate leaving

the major (Lichtenstein, Loshbaugh,

Claar, Bailey, & Sheppard, 2007).

Encouragingly, these authors also

found that “a single positive inter-

action, excitement about a course’s

teaching and/or content . . . cause a

student to conrm his or her choice

to stick with engineering” (p. 20).

In contrast to the larger scale efforts

to retain students in STEM, such

as summer bridge sessions, supple-

mental courses, externally funded

undergraduate research programs, and

department-wide student mentoring

and support systems (Brewe, Kramer,

& Sawtelle, 2012; Fortenberry, Sul-

livan, Jordan, & Knight, 2007; Hsu,

Murphy, & Treisman, 2008; Koenig,

2009; Maton, Hrabowski, & Schmitt,

2000), this nding suggests that a

single introductory course can have

an impact on student persistence in

STEM majors. In particular, using

interactive, engaging teaching meth-

ods could help improve the retention

of students in STEM majors. In this

paper, we examine the relationship

between changing the pedagogy from

lecture to Peer Instruction (PI) in an

introductory physics course and stu-

dent retention in STEM majors.

Peer Instruction

PI is an interactive teaching tech-

nique that promotes classroom in-

teraction to engage students and ad-

dress difcult aspects of the material

(Crouch & Mazur, 2001; Crouch,

Watkins, Fagen, & Mazur, 2007;

Mazur, 1997). PI structures time dur-

ing class around short, conceptual

multiple-choice questions, known as

ConcepTests. In Figure 1, we show

an example ConcepTest from intro-

ductory physics. These questions are

targeted to address student difcul-

ties and promote student thinking

about challenging concepts.

Typically, the instructor starts with

a brief presentation or summary of

the material to be covered. Then, the

focus shifts from instructor to student,

as the instructor poses a ConcepTest

and asks students to think about the

question and related concepts. After

1–2 minutes of thinking, students

commit to an individual answer by

using clickers, ashcards, a simple

raising of hands, or writing down

the answer on a piece of paper. If too

few students respond with the correct

answer, the instructor may revisit the

concepts using lecture or try a differ-

ent ConcepTest. If a large majority

of students respond correctly, the in-

structor typically gives a brief expla-

nation and moves on to the next topic

or ConcepTest. If 30–70% of students

answer the ConcepTest correctly, the

instructor asks students to turn to their

neighbors and discuss their answers.

Students talk in pairs or small groups

and are encouraged to nd someone

with a different answer. The teaching

staff circulates throughout the room to

encourage productive discussions and

guide student thinking. After several

minutes, students answer the same

ConcepTest again. The instructor then

explains the correct answer and, de-

pending on the student answers, may

pose a related ConcepTest or move on

to a different topic or concept.

Research in physics education has

shown that courses incorporating

“activities that yield immediate feed-

back through discussion with peers

and/or instructors” result in higher

scores on assessments of students’

conceptual understanding than tra-

ditional courses (Hake, 1998). Data

from introductory physics courses at

Harvard University conrmed this

nding, showing improved perfor-

mance in PI courses on conceptual

surveys and quantitative problems

(Crouch & Mazur, 2001; Mazur,

1997). The increased overall learning

gains with the use of PI have not only

been found at highly selective institu-

tions. The results were replicated at a

community college (Lasry, Mazur, &

Watkins, 2008), suggesting that PI is

effective with heterogeneous student

populations. Furthermore, the posi-

tive results of PI are not limited to

physics courses. Other studies have

shown that PI is useful in improving

learning in biology (Knight & Wood,

2005), engineering (Nicol & Boyle,

2003), psychology (Morling, McAu-

liffe, Cohen, & DiLorenzo, 2008),

medicine (Rao & DiCarlo, 2000),

FIGURE 1

An example of a ConcepTest.

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