Seeing the Forest by Seeing the Trees: Using Student Surveys to Measure Instructional Practices

Efforts to improve undergraduate education in mathematics and other STEM fields often work with instructors to implement research-based instructional practices that emphasize active and collaborative learning. To measure the progress and outcomes of such initiatives, researchers need measurement tools that are versatile, meaningful, and inexpensive to use, to know what teaching practices are occurring. Because students spend a great deal of time observing class conditions, they are well positioned to report the teaching that they experienced. We report results from some 2400 student surveys on the use of active and collaborative learning (ACL) approaches in over 200 recitation sections of gateway courses in tertiary mathematics, physics, and computer science. We developed a set of survey items, TAMI-SS, and a compound measure based on the items, called S-ACL for Student-reported Active and Collaborative Learning, that reflects the extent of active and collaborative learning as reported by students. We find that S-ACL scores compare favorably with instructor surveys and observations, and with students’ reports of their classroom experience using established measures. Moreover, S-ACL reflected departments’ progress in implementing ACL in recitations. When focused on specific, observable classroom behaviors, student surveys of instructional practice can be used to measure the progress of instructional change initiatives in mathematics and similar fields.