Category: direct instruction

Passive learners in unethical control conditions

When 'direct instruction' just becomes poor instruction

Keith S. Taber

An experiment that has been set up to ensure the control condition fails, and so compares an innovation with a substandard teaching condition, can – at best – only show the innovation is not as bad as the substandard teaching

One of the things which angers me when I read research papers is examples of what I think of as 'rhetorical research' that use unethical control conditions (Taber, 2019). That is, educational research which sets up one group of students to be taught in a way that is clearly disadvantages them to ensure the success of an experimental teaching approach,

"I am suggesting that some of the experimental studies reported in the literature are rhetorical in the … sense that the researchers clearly expect to demonstrate a well- established effect, albeit in a specific context where it has not previously been demonstrated. The general form of the question 'will this much-tested teaching approach also work here' is clearly set up expecting the answer 'yes'. Indeed, control conditions may be chosen to give the experiment the best possible chance of producing a positive outcome for the experimental treatment."

Taber, 2019, p.108

This irks me for two reasons. The first, obviously, is that researchers have been prepared to (ab)use learners as 'data fodder' and subject them to poor learning contexts in order to have the best chance of getting positive results for the innovation supposedly being 'tested'. However, it also annoys me as this is inherently a poor research design (and so a poor use of resources) as it severely limits what can be found out. An experiment that compares an innovation with a substandard teaching condition can, at best, show the innovation is not as ineffecitive as the substandard teaching in the control condition; but it cannot tell us if the innovation is at least as effective as existing good practice.

This irritation is compounded when the work I am reading is not some amateur report thrown together for a predatory journal, but an otherwise serious study published in a good research outlet. That was certainly the case for a paper I read today in Research in Science Education (the journal of the Australasian Science Education Research Association) on problem-based learning (Tarhan, Ayar-Kayali, Urek & Acar, 2008).

Rhetorical studies?

Genuine research is undertaken to find something out. The researchers in this enquiry claim:

"This research study aims to examine the effectiveness of a [sic] problem-based learning [PbBL] on 9th grade students' understanding of intermolecular forces (dipole- dipole forces, London dispersion forces and hydrogen bonding)."

Tarhan, et al., 2008, p.285

But they choose to compare PbBL with a teaching approach that they expect to be ineffective. Here the researchers might have asked "how does teaching year 9 students about intermolecular forces though problem-based learning compared with current good practice?" After all, even if PbBL worked quite well, if it is not quite as effective as the way teachers are currently teaching the topic then, all other things being equal, there is no reason to shift to it; whereas if it outperforms even our best current approaches, then there is a reason to recommend it to teachers and roll out associated professional development opportunities.

Problem-based learning (third column) uses a problem (i.e., a task which cannot be solved simply by recalling prior learning or employing an algorithmic routine) as the focus and motivation for learning about a topic

Of course, that over-simplifies the situation, as in education, 'all other things' never are equal (every school, class, teacher…is unique). An approach that works best on average will not work best everywhere. But knowing what works best on average (that is, taken across the diverse range of teaching and learning contexts) is certainly a very useful starting point when teachers want to consider what might work best in their own classrooms.

Rhetorical research is poor research, as it is set up (deliberately or inadvertently) to demonstrate a particular outcome, and, so, has built-in bias. In the case of experimental studies, this often means choosing an ineffective instructional approach for the comparison class. Why else would researchers select a control condition they know is not suitable for bringing about the educational outcomes they are testing for?

Problem-Based Learning in a 9th Grade Chemistry Class

Tarhan and colleagues' study was undertaken in one school with 78 students divided into two groups. One group was taught through a sequence based on problem-based learning that involved students undertaking research in groups, gently supported and steered by the teacher. The approach allowed student dialogue, which is believed to be valuable in learning, and motivated students to be active engaged in enquiry. When such an approach is well judged it has potential to count as 'scaffolding' of learning. This seems a very worthwhile innovation – well worth developing and evaluating.

Of course, work in one school cannot be assumed to generalise elsewhere, and small-scale experimental work of this kind is open to major threats to validity, such as expectancy effects and researcher bias – but this is unfortunately always true of these kinds of studies (which are often all educational researchers are resourced to carry out). Finding out what works best in some educational context at least potentially contributes to building up an overall picture (Taber, 2019). 1

Why is this rhetorical research?

I consider this rhetoric research because of the claims the authors make at the start of the study:

"Research in science education therefore has focused on applying active learning techniques, which ensure the affective construction of knowledge, prevent the formation of alternate conceptions, and remedy existing alternate conceptions…Other studies suggest that active learning methods increase learning achievement by requiring students to play a more active role in the learning process…According to active learning principles, which emphasise constructivism, students must engage in researching, reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, analysis and synthesis during construction of their knowledge."

Tarhan, et al., 2008, pp.285-286

If they genuinely believed that, then to test the effectiveness of their PbBL activity, Tarhan and colleagues needed to compare it with some other teaching condition that they are confident can "ensure the affective construction of knowledge, prevent the formation of alternate conceptions, and remedy existing alternate conceptions… requir[e] students to play a more active role in the learning process…[and] engage in researching, reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, analysis and synthesis during construction of their knowledge." A failure to do that means that the 'experiment' has been biased – it has been set up to ensure the control condition fails.

Unethical research?

"In most educational research experiments of [this] type…potential harm is likely to be limited to subjecting students (and teachers) to conditions where teaching may be less effective, and perhaps demotivating. This may happen in experimental treatments with genuine innovations (given the nature of research). It can also potentially occur in control conditions if students are subjected to teaching inputs of low effectiveness when better alternatives were available. This may be judged only a modest level of harm, but – given that the whole purpose of experiments to test teaching innovations is to facilitate improvements in teaching effectiveness – this possibility should be taken seriously."

Taber, 2019, p.94

The same teacher taught both classes: "Both of the groups were taught by the same chemistry teacher, who was experienced in active learning and PbBL" (p.288). This would seem to reduce the 'teacher effect' – outcomes being effected because the teacher of one one class being more effective than that of another. (Reduce, rather than eliminate, as different teachers have different styles, skills, and varied expertise: so, most teachers are more suited to, and competent in, some teaching approaches than others.)

So, this teacher was certainly capable of teaching in the ways that Tarhan and colleagues claim as necessary for effective learning ("active learning techniques"). However, the control condition sets up the opposite of active learning, so-called passive learning:

"In this study, the control group was taught the same topics as the experimental group using a teacher-centred traditional didactic lecture format. Teaching strategies were dependent on teacher expression and question-answer format. However, students were passive participants during the lessons and they only listened and took notes as the teacher lectured on the content.

The lesson was begun with teacher explanation about polar and nonpolar covalent bonding. She defined formation of dipole-dipole forces between polar molecules. She explained that because of the difference in electronegativities between the H and Cl atoms for HCl molecule is 0.9, they are polar molecules and there are dipole-dipole forces between HCl molecules. She also stated that the intermolecular dipole-dipole forces are weaker than intramolecular bonds such as covalent and ionic bonding. She gave the example of vaporisation and decomposition of HCl. She explained that while 16 kJ/mol of energy is needed to overcome the intermolecular attraction between HCl molecules in liquid HCl during vaporisation process of HCl, 431 kJ/mol of energy is required to break the covalent bond between the H and Cl atoms in the HCl molecule. In the other lesson, the teacher reminded the students of dipole-dipole forces and then considered London dispersion forces as weak intermolecular forces that arise from the attractive force between instantaneous dipole in nonpolar molecules. She gave the examples of F2, Cl2, Br2, I2 and said that because the differences in electronegativity for these examples are zero, these molecules are non-polar and had intermolecular London dispersion forces. The effects of molecular size and mass on the strengths of London dispersion forces were discussed on the same examples. She compared the strengths of dipole-dipole forces and London dispersion forces by explaining the differences in melting and boiling points for polar (MgO, HCl and NO) and non-polar molecules (F2, Cl2, Br2, and I2). The teacher classified London dispersion forces and dipole- dipole as van der Waals forces, and indicated that there are both London dispersion forces and dipole-dipole forces between polar molecules and only London dispersion forces between nonpolar molecules. In the last lesson, teacher called attention to the differences in boiling points of H2O and H2S and defined hydrogen bonds as the other intermolecular forces besides dipole-dipole and London dispersion forces. Strengths of hydrogen bonds depending on molecular properties were explained and compared in HF, NH3 and H2O. She gave some examples of intermolecular forces in daily life. The lesson was concluded with a comparison of intermolecular forces with each other and intramolecular forces."

Tarhan, et al., 2008, p.293

Lecturing is not ideal for teaching university students. It is generally not suitable for teaching school children (and it is not consistent with what is expected in Turkish schools).

This was a lost opportunity to seriously evaluate the teaching through PbBL by comparing with teaching that followed the national policy recommendations. Moreover, it was a dereliction of the duty that educators should never deliberately disadvantage learners. It is reasonable to experiment with children's learning when you feel there is a good chance of positive outcomes: it is not acceptable to deliberately set up learners to fail (e.g., by organising 'passive' learning when you claim to believe effective learning activities are necessarily 'active').

Isn't this 'direct instruction'?

Now, perhaps the account of the teaching given by Tarhan and colleagues might seem to fit the label of 'direct teaching'. Whilst Tarhan et al. claim constructivist teaching is clearly necessary for effective learning, there are some educators who claim that constructivist approaches are inferior, and a more direct approach, 'direct instruction', is more likely to lead to learning gains.

This has been a lively debate, but often the various commentators use terminology differently and argue across each other (Taber, 2010). The proponents of direct instruction often criticise teaching that expects learners to take nearly all the responsibility for learning, with minimal teacher support. I would also criticise that (except perhaps in the case of graduate research students once they have demonstrated their competence, including knowing when to seek supervisory guidance). That is quite unlike genuine constructivist teaching which is optimally guided (Taber, 2011): where the teacher manages activities, constantly monitors learner progress, and intervenes with various forms of direction and support as needed. Tarhan and colleagues' description of their problem-based learning experimental condition appears to have had this kind of guidance:

"The teacher visited each group briefly, and steered students appropriately by using some guiding questions and encouraging them to generate their hypothesis. The teacher also stimulated the students to gain more information on topics such as the polar structure of molecules, differences in electronegativity, electron number, atom size and the relationship between these parameters and melting-boiling points…The teacher encouraged students to discuss the differences in melting and boiling points for polar and non-polar molecules. The students came up with [their] research questions under the guidance of the teacher…"

Tarhan, et al., 2008, pp.290-291

By contrast, descriptions of effective direct instruction do involve tightly planned teaching with carefully scripted teacher moves of the kind quoted in the account, above, of the control condition. (But any wise teacher knows that lessons can only be scripted as a provisional plan: the teacher has to constantly check the learners are making sense of teaching as intended, and must be prepared to change pace, repeat sections, re-order or substitute activities, invent new analogies and examples, and so forth.)

However, this instruction is not simply a one-way transfer of information, but rather a teacher-led process that engages students in active learning to process the material being introduced by the teacher. If this is done by breaking the material into manageable learning quanta, each of which students engage with in dialogic learning activities before preceding to the next, then this is constructivist teaching (even if it may also be considered by some as 'direct instruction'!)

Effective teaching moves between teacher input and student activities and is not just the teacher communicating information to the learners.

By contrast, the lecture format adopted by Tarhan's team was based on the teacher offering a multi-step argument (delivered over several lessons) and asking the learners to follow and retain an extensive presentation.

"The lesson was begun with teacher explanation …

She defined …

She explained…

She also stated…

She gave the example …

She explained that …

the teacher reminded the students …

She gave the examples of …

She compared…

The teacher classified …

and indicated that …

[the] teacher called attention to …

She gave some examples of …"

Tarhan, et al., 2008, p.293

This is a description of the transmission of information through a communication channel: not an account of teaching which engages with students' thinking and guides them to new understandings.

Ethical review

Despite the paper having been published in a major journal, Research in Science Education, there seems to be no mention that the study design has been through any kind of institutional ethical review before the research began. Moreover, there is no reference to the learners or their parents/guardians having been asked for, or having given, voluntary, informed, consent, as is usually required in research with human participants. Indeed Tarhen and colleagues refer to the children as the 'subjects' of their research, not participants in their study.

Perhaps ethical review was not expected in the national context (at least, in 2008). Certainly, it is difficult to imagine how voluntary, informed, consent would be obtained if parents were to be informed that half of the learners would be deliberately subject to a teaching approach the researchers claim lacks any of the features "students must engage in…during construction of their knowledge".

PbBL is better than…deliberately teaching in a way designed to limit learning

Tarhan and colleagues, unsurprisingly, report that on a post-test the students who were taught through PbBL out-performed these students who were lectured at. It would have been very surprising (and so potentially more interesting, and, perhaps, even useful, research!) had they found anything else, given the way the research was biased.

So, to summarise:

  1. At the outset of the paper it is reported that it is already established that effective learning requires students to engage in active learning tasks.
  2. Students in the experimental conditions undertook learning through a PbBL sequence designed to engage them in active learning.
  3. Students in the control condition were subject to a sequence of lecturing inputs designed to ensure they were passive.
  4. Students in the active learning condition outperformed the students in the passive learning condition

Which I suggest can be considered both rhetorical research, and unethical.

The study can be considered both rhetorical and unfair to the learners assigned to be in the control group

Read about rhetorical experiments

Read about unethical control conditions

Work cited:
Note:

1 There is a major issue which is often ignored in studies of his type (where a pedagogical innovation is trialled in a single school area, school or classroom). Finding that problem-based learning (or whatever) is effective in one school when teaching one topic to one year group does not allow us to generalise to other classrooms, schools, country, educational level, topics and disciplines.

Indeed, as every school, every teacher, every class, etc., is unique in some ways, it might be argued that one only really finds out if an approach will work well 'here' by trying it out 'here' – and whether it is universally applicable by trying it everywhere. Clearly academic researchers cannot carry out such a programme, but individual teachers and departments can try out promising approaches for themselves (i.e., context-directed research, such as 'action research').

We might ask if there is any point in researchers carrying out studies of the type discussed in this article, there they start by saying an approach has been widely demonstrated, and then test it in what seems an arbitrarily chosen (or, more likely, convenient) curriculum and classroom context, given that we cannot generalise from individual studies, and it is not viable to test every possible context.

However, there are some sensible guidelines for how series of such studies into the same type of pedagogic innovation in different contexts can be more useful in (a) helping determine the range of contexts where an approach is effective (through what we might call 'incremental generalisation'), and (b) document the research contexts is sufficient detail to support readers in making judgements about the degree of similarity with their own teaching context (Taber, 2019).

Read about replication studies

Read about incremental generalisation

A case of hybrid research design?

When is "a case study" not a case study? Perhaps when it is (nearly) an experiment?

Keith S. Taber

I read this interesting study exploring learners shifting conceptions of the particulate nature of gases.

Mamombe, C., Mathabathe, K. C., & Gaigher, E. (2020). The influence of an inquiry-based approach on grade four learners' understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase: a case study. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(1), 1-11. doi:10.29333/ejmste/110391

Key features:

  • Science curriculum context: the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase
  • Educational context: Grade 4 students in South Africa
  • Pedagogic context: Teacher-initiated inquiry approach (compared to a 'lecture' condition/treatment)
  • Methodology: "qualitative pre-test/post-test case study design" – or possibly a quasi-experiment?
  • Population/sample: the sample comprised 116 students from four grade four classes, two from each of two schools

This study offers some interesting data, providing evidence of how students represent their conceptions of the particulate nature of gases. What most intrigued me about the study was its research design, which seemed to reflect an unusual hybrid of quite distinct methodologies.

In this post I look at whether the study is indeed a case study as the authors suggest, or perhaps a kind of experiment. I also make some comments about the teaching model of the states of matter presented to the learners, and raise the question of whether the comparison condition (lecturing 8-9 year old children about an abstract scientific model) is appropriate, and indeed ethical.

Learners' conceptions of the particulate nature of matter

This paper is well worth reading for anyone who is not familiar with existing research (such as that cited in the paper) describing how children make sense of the particulate nature of matter, something that many find counter-intuitive. As a taster for this, I reproduce here two figures from the paper (which is published open access under a creative common license* that allows sharing and adaption of copyright material with due acknowledgement).

  • Pre-test data from Mamombe et al, 2020
  • Post-test data from Mamombe et al, 2020.

Figures © 2020 by the authors of the cited paper *

Conceptions are internal, and only directly available to the epistemic subject, the person holding the conception. (Indeed, some conceptions may be considered implicit, and so not even available to direct introspection.) In research, participants are asked to represent their understandings in the external 'public space' – often in talk, here by drawing (Taber, 2013). The drawings have to be interpreted by the researchers (during data analysis). In this study the researchers also collected data from group work during learning (in the enquiry condition) and by interviewing students.

What kind of research design is this?

Mamombe and colleagues describe their study as "a qualitative pre-test/post-test case study design with qualitative content analysis to provide more insight into learners' ideas of matter in the gaseous phase" (p. 3), yet it has many features of an experimental study.

The study was

"conducted to explore the influence of inquiry-based education in eliciting learners' understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase"

p.1

The experiment compared two pedagogical treatments :

  • "inquiry-based teaching…teacher-guided inquiry method" (p.3) guided by "inquiry-based instruction as conceptualized in the 5Es instructional model" (p.5)
  • "direct instruction…the lecture method" (p.3)

These pedagogic approaches were described:

"In the inquiry lessons learners were given a lot of materials and equipment to work with in various activities to determine answers to the questions about matter in the gaseous phase. The learners in the inquiry lessons made use of their observations and made their own representations of air in different contexts."

"the teacher gave probing questions to learners who worked in groups and constructed different models of their conceptions of matter in the gaseous phase. The learners engaged in discussion and asked the teacher many questions during their group activities. Each group of learners reported their understanding of matter in the gaseous phase to the class"

p.5, p.1

"In the lecture lessons learners did not do any activities. They were taught in a lecturing style and given all the notes and all the necessary drawings.

In the lecture classes the learners were exposed to lecture method which constituted mainly of the teacher telling the learners all they needed to know about the topic PNM [particulate nature of matter]. …During the lecture classes the learners wrote a lot of notes and copied a lot of drawings. Learners were instructed to paste some of the drawings in their books."

pp.5-6

The authors report that,

"The learners were given clear and neat drawings which represent particles in the gaseous, liquid and solid states…The following drawing was copied by learners from the chalkboard."

p.6
Figure used to teach learners in the 'lecture' condition. Figure © 2020 by the authors of the cited paper *
A teaching model of the states of matter

This figure shows increasing separation between particles moving from solid to liquid to gas. It is not a canonical figure, in that the spacing in a liquid is not substantially greater than in a solid (indeed, in ice floating on water the spacing is greater in the solid), whereas the difference in spacing in the two fluid states is under-represented.

Such figures do not show the very important dynamic aspect: that in a solid particles can usually only oscillate around a fixed position (a very low rate of diffusion not withstanding), where in a liquid particles can move around, but movement is restricted by the close arrangement of (and intermolecular forces between) the particles, where in a gas there is a significant mean free path between collisions where particles move with virtually constant velocity. A static figure like this, then, does not show the critical differences in particle interactions which are core to the basic scientific model

Perhaps even more significant, figure 2 suggests there is the same level of order in the three states, whereas the difference in ordering between a solid and liquid is much more significant than any change in particle spacing.

In teaching, choices have to be made about how to represent science (through teaching models) to learners who are usually not ready to take on board the full details and complexity of scientific knowledge. Here, Figure 2 represents a teaching model where it has been decided to emphasise one aspect of the scientific model (particle spacing) by distorting the canonical model, and to neglect other key features of the basic scientific account (particle movement and arrangement).

External teachers taught the classes

The teaching was undertaken by two university lecturers

"Two experienced teachers who are university lecturers and well experienced in teacher education taught the two classes during the intervention. Each experienced teacher taught using the lecture method in one school and using the teacher-guided inquiry method in the other school."

p.3

So, in each school there was one class taught by each approach (enquiry/lecture) by a different visiting teacher, and the teachers 'swapped' the teaching approaches between schools (a sensible measure to balance possible differences between the skills/styles of the two teachers).

The research design included a class in each treatment in each of two schools

An experiment; or a case study?

Although the study compared progression in learning across two teaching treatments using an analysis of learner diagrams, the study also included interviews, as well as learners' "notes during class activities" (which one would expect would be fairly uniform within each class in the 'lecture' treatment).

The outcome

The authors do not consider their study to be an experiment, despite setting up two conditions for teaching, and comparing outcomes between the two conditions, and drawing conclusions accordingly:

"The results of the inquiry classes of the current study revealed a considerable improvement in the learners' drawings…The results of the lecture group were however, contrary to those of the inquiry group. Most learners in the lecture group showed continuous model in their post-intervention results just as they did before the intervention…only a slight improvement was observed in the drawings of the lecture group as compared to their pre-intervention results"

pp.8-9

These statements can be read in two ways – either

  • a description of events (it just happened that with these particular classes the researchers found better outcomes in the enquiry condition), or
  • as the basis for a generalised inference.

An experiment would be designed to test a hypothesis (this study does not seem to have an explicit hypothesis, nor explicit research questions). Participants would be assigned randomly to conditions (Taber, 2019), or, at least, classes would be randomly assigned (although then strictly each class should be considered as a single unit of analysis offering much less basis for statistical comparisons). No information is given in the paper on how it was decided which classes would be taught by which treatment.

Representativeness

A study could be carried out with the participation of a complete population of interest (e.g., all of the science teachers in one secondary school), but more commonly a sample is selected from a population of interest. In a true experiment, the sample has to be selected randomly from the population (Taber, 2019) which is seldom possible in educational studies.

The study investigated a sample of 'grade four learners'

In Mamombe and colleagues' study the sample is described. However, there is no explicit reference to the population from which the sample is drawn. Yet the use of the term 'sample' (rather than just, say, 'participants') implies that they did have a population in mind.

The aim of the study is given as to "to explore the influence of inquiry-based education in eliciting learners' understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the gaseous phase" (p.1) which could be considered to imply that the population is 'learners'. The title of the paper could be taken to suggest the population of interests is more specific: "grade four learners". However, the authors make no attempt to argue that their sample is representative of any particular population, and therefore have no basis for statistical generalisation beyond the sample (whether to learners, or to grade four learners, or to grade four learners in RSA, or to grade four learners in farm schools in RSA, or…).

Indeed only descriptive statistics are presented: there is no attempt to use tests of statistical significance to infer whether the difference in outcomes between conditions found in the sample would probably have also been found in the wider population.

(That is inferential stats. are commonly used to suggest 'we found a statistically significant better outcome in one condition in our sample, so in the hypothetical situation that we had been able to include the entire population in out study we would probably have found better mean outcomes in that same condition'.)

This may be one reason why Mamombe and colleagues do not consider their study to be an experiment. The authors acknowledge limitations in their study (as there always are in any study) including that "the sample was limited to two schools and two science education specialists as instructors; the results should therefore not be generalized" (p.9).

Yet, of course, if the results cannot be generalised beyond these four classes in two schools, this undermines the usefulness of the study (and the grounds for the recommendations the authors make for teaching based on their findings in the specific research contexts).

If considered as an experiment, the study suffers from other inherent limitations (Taber, 2019). There were likely novelty effects, and even though there was no explicit hypothesis, it is clear that the authors expected enquiry to be a productive approach, so expectancy effects may have been operating.

Analytical framework

In an experiment is it important to have an objective means to measure outcomes, and this should be determined before data are collected. (Read about 'Analysis' in research studies.). In this study methods used in previous published work were adopted, and the authors tell us that "A coding scheme was developed based on the findings of previous research…and used during the coding process in the current research" (p.6).

But they then go on to report,

"Learners' drawings during the pre-test and post-test, their notes during class activities and their responses during interviews were all analysed using the coding scheme developed. This study used a combination of deductive and inductive content analysis where new conceptions were allowed to emerge from the data in addition to the ones previously identified in the literature"

p.6

An emerging analytical frame is perfectly appropriate in 'discovery' research where a pre-determined conceptualisation of how data is to be understood is not employed. However in 'confirmatory' research, testing a specific idea, the analysis is operationalised prior to collecting data. The use of qualitative data does not exclude a hypothesis-testing, confirmatory study, as qualitative data can be analysed quantitatively (as is done in this study), but using codes that link back to a hypothesis being tested, rather than emergent codes. (Read about 'Approaches to qualitative data analysis'.)

Much of Mamombe and colleagues' description of their work aligns with an exploratory discovery approach to enquiry, yet the gist of the study is to compare student representations in relation to a model of correct/acceptable or alternative conceptions to test the relative effectiveness of two pedagogic treatments (i.e., an experiment). That is a 'nomothetic' approach that assumed standard categories of response.

Overall, the author's account of how they collected and analysed data seem to suggest a hybrid approach, with elements of both a confirmatory approach (suitable for an experiment) and elements of a discovery approach (more suitable for case study). It might seem this is a kind of mixed methods study with both confirmatory/nomothetic and discovery/idiographic aspects – responding to two different types of research question the same study.

Yet there do not actually seem (**) to be two complementary strands to the research (one exploring the richness of student's ideas, the other comparing variables – i.e., type of teaching versus degree of learning), but rather an attempt to hybridise distinct approaches based on incongruent fundamental (paradigmatic) assumptions about research. (** Having explicit research questions stated in the paper could have clarified this issue for a reader.)

So, do we have a case study?

Mamombe and colleagues may have chosen to frame their study as a kind of case study because of the issues raised above in regard to considering it an experiment. However, it is hard to see how it qualifies as case study (even if the editor and peer reviewers of the EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education presumably felt this description was appropriate).

Mamombe and colleagues do use multiple data sources, which is a common feature of case study. However, in other ways the study does not meet the usual criteria for case study. (Read more about 'Case study'.)

For one thing, case study is naturalistic. The method is used to study a complex phenomena (e.g., a teacher teaching a class) that is embedded in a wider context (e.g., a particular school, timetable, cultural context, etc.) such that it cannot be excised for clinical examination (e.g., moving the lesson to a university campus for easy observation) without changing it. Here, there was an intervention, imposed from the outside, with external agents acting as the class teachers.

Even more fundamentally – what is the 'case'?

A case has to have a recognisable ('natural') boundary, albeit one that has some permeability in relation to its context. A classroom, class, year group, teacher, school, school district, etcetera, can be the subject of a case study. Two different classes in one school, combined with two other classes from another school, does not seem to make a bounded case.

In case study, the case has to be defined (not so in this study); and it should be clear it is a naturally occurring unit (not so here); and the case report should provide 'thick description' (not provided here) of the case in its context. Mamombe and colleagues' study is simply not a case study as usually understood: not a "qualitative pre-test/post-test case study design" or any other kind of case study.

That kind of mislabelling does not in itself does not invalidate research – but may indicate some confusion in the basic paradigmatic underpinnings of a study. That seems to be the case [sic] here, as suggested above.

Suitability of the comparison condition: lecturing

A final issue of note about the methodology in this study is the nature of one of the two conditions used as a pedagogic treatment. In a true experiment, this condition (against which the enquiry condition was contrasted) would be referred to as the control condition. In a quasi-experiment (where randomisation of participants to conditions is not carried out) this would usually be referred to as the comparison condition.

At one point Mamombe and colleagues refer to this pedagogic treatment as 'direct instruction' (p.3), although this term has become ambiguous as it has been shown to mean quite different things to different authors. This is also referred to in the paper as the lecture condition.

Is the comparison condition ethical?

Parental consent was given for students contributing data for analysis in the study, but parents would likely trust the professional judgement of the researchers to ensure their children were taught appropriately. Readers are informed that "the learners whose parents had not given consent also participated in all the activities together with the rest of the class" (p.3) so it seems some children in the lecture treatment were subject to the inferior teaching approach despite this lack of consent, as they were studying "a prescribed topic in the syllabus of the learners" (p.3).

I have been very critical of a certain kind of 'rhetorical' research (Taber, 2019) report which

  • begins by extolling the virtues of some kind of active / learner-centred / progressive / constructivist pedagogy; explaining why it would be expected to provide effective teaching; and citing numerous studies that show its proven superiority across diverse teaching contexts;
  • then compares this with passive modes of learning, based on the teacher talking and giving students notes to copy, which is often characterised as 'traditional' but is said to be ineffective in supporting student learning;
  • then describes how authors set up an experiment to test the (superior) pedagogy in some specific context, using as a comparison condition the very passive learning approach they have already criticised as being ineffective as supporting learning.

My argument is that such research is unethical

  • It is not genuine science as the researchers are not testing a genuine hypothesis, but rather looking to demonstrate something they are already convinced of (which does not mean they could not be wrong, but in research we are trying to develop new knowledge).
  • It is not a proper test of the effectiveness of the progressive pedagogy as it is being compared against a teaching approach the authors have already established is sub-standard.

Most critically, young people are subjected to teaching that the researchers already believe they know will disadvantage them, just for the sake of their 'research', to generate data for reporting in a research journal. Sadly, such rhetorical studies are still often accepted for publication despite their methodological weaknesses and ethical flaws.

I am not suggesting that Mamombe, Mathabathe and Gaigher have carried out such a rhetorical study (i.e., one that poses a pseudo-question where from the outset only one outcome is considered feasible). They do not make strong criticisms of the lecturing approach, and even note that it produces some learning in their study:

"Similar to the inquiry group, the drawings of the learners were also clearer and easier to classify after teaching"

"although the inquiry method was more effective than the lecture method in eliciting improved particulate conception and reducing continuous conception, there was also improvement in the lecture group"

p.9, p.10

I have no experience of the South African education context, so I do not know what is typical pedagogy in primary schools there, nor the range of teaching approaches that grade 4 students there might normally experience (in the absence of external interventions such as reported in this study).

It is for the "two experienced teachers who are university lecturers and well experienced in teacher education" (p.3) to have judged whether a lecture approach based on teacher telling, children making notes and copying drawings, but with no student activities, can be considered an effective way of teaching 8-9 year old children a highly counter-intuitive, abstract, science topic. If they consider this good teaching practice (i.e., if it is the kind of approach they would recommend in their teacher education roles) then it is quite reasonable for them to have employed this comparison condition.

However, if these experienced teachers and teacher educators, and the researchers designing the study, considered that this was poor pedagogy, then there is a real question for them to address as to why they thought it was appropriate to implement it, rather than compare the enquiry condition with an alternative teaching approach that they would have expected to be effective.

Sources cited:

* Material reproduced from Mamombe, Mathabathe & Gaigher, 2020 is © 2020 licensee Modestum Ltd., UK. That article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) [This post, excepting that material, is © 2020, Keith S. Taber.]

An introduction to research in education:

Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.