Impact of Instructor Intervention on the Conceptual Understanding of Undergraduate Engineering Students Working in a Group

Abstract

This preliminary study examines interaction patterns between instructors and students and how the interactions impact students’ conceptual understanding. Video data was drawn from four discussion sections in a required undergraduate engineering course involving six instructors. Emergent coding schemes were developed and were used to analyze how different instructors intervened in groups of students during different scenarios. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to understand the main contributors of interaction that led to high conceptual understanding talk. The study suggests that the instructor’s observation of students before intervention does not significantly affect their interaction with students or their conceptual understanding discourse. Non-IRE (Initiate-Response-Evaluate) discourse patterns and scaffolding for problem solving were primary estimators of instructor-student interaction quality. There was a significant effect of instructor-student interaction on their conceptual understanding discourse.