The active-learning advantage is robust to publication bias and to variation in methodological rigor of the included studies¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesisr3·q4
Currency · newest study 2014 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q4 i? Fail-safe numbers were high (114 studies for examination performance, 438 for failure rate), and effect sizes showed no heterogeneity by quality of controls over student or instructor equivalence. → Freeman S 2014
Evidence¶
Freeman S 2014¶
Freeman S, Eddy SL, McDonough M, Smith MK, Okoroafor N, Jordt H, Wenderoth MP. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. PNAS 111(23):8410-8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111
q4 · i? · quant-synthesis · r3
Sensitivity analyses of the examination-score dataset across four categories of control over student equivalence and two categories of instructor equivalence. No heterogeneity by student-equivalence quality (Q = 2.097, df = 3, P = 0.553) or instructor identity (Q = 0.007, df = 1, P = 0.934).
"there was no heterogeneity based on methodological quality ( Q = 2.097, df = 3, P = 0.553): Experiments where students were assigned to treatments at random produced results that were indistinguishable from three types of quasirandomized designs"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Active Learning Improves Exam Performance — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
- Variation in meta-analytic effect sizes stems from synthesists' methodological choices (inclusion criteria, data extraction, formulas, outlier handling) and from study quality — related
- Active learning's performance benefits hold across all STEM disciplines — related
- Publication-bias checks indicate the pooled effect is unlikely to result from publication bias — a broader claim this one bears on
- Included reports are methodologically robust overall but weak on implementation fidelity, which was assessed in only about half of the programs — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
active-learning-effect-robust-bias-and-rigor |
title |
The active-learning advantage is robust to publication bias and to variation in methodological rigor of the included studies |
description |
The active-learning advantage is robust to publication bias and to variation in methodological rigor of the included studies |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
strong |
newest_evidence |
2014 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-13 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — freeman-s-2014 |
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