Variation of Instructor-Student Interactions in an Introductory Interactive Physics Course

TL;DR

This study introduces a real-time observation tool to analyze instructor-student interactions in a large physics course, revealing significant variation among instructors that impacts student experiences.

Contribution

The paper presents the development and application of the RIOT tool to quantify instructor behavior variation in a large-enrollment physics course.

Findings

Instructor behaviors vary more than previously assumed.

Significant differences in student experiences are linked to instructor variation.

The RIOT tool effectively captures real-time instructor-student interactions.

Abstract

The physics instruction at UC Davis for life science majors takes place in a long-standing reformed large-enrollment physics course in which the discussion/lab instructors (primarily graduate student teaching assistants) implement the interactive-engagement (IE) elements of the course. Because so many different instructors participate in disseminating the IE course elements, we find it essential to the instructors professional development to observe and document the student-instructor interactions within the classroom. Out of this effort, we have developed a computerized real-time instructor observation tool (RIOT) to take data of student-instructor interactions. We use the RIOT to observe 29 different instructors for five hours each over the course of one quarter, for a total of about 150 hours of class time, finding that the range of instructor behaviors is more extreme than previously assumed. In this paper, we introduce the RIOT and describe how the variation present across 29 different instructors can provide students in the same course with significantly different course experiences.