First batch Research Fellows Programme
Eighteen educators participated in the first batch of the programme, which ran from September 2021 until July 2023. This batch of the programme focused on four themes:
- Online and blended education
- (Formative) assessment and feedback
- Didactics within specific disciplines
- Pedagogical approaches
Read below per theme and fellow what they have researched and what (preliminary) results this has brought.
Theme 1: Online and blended education
About this research
Though the flipped classroom concept is hailed as a promising, fruitful approach to activate students and enhance deeper learning, in practice it turns out to be very difficult to realize these goals. Students tend to shy away from meetings where an active stance and preparatory activities are required. This research project, which forms part of a design cycle, has the aim to put improvements on earlier tried set-ups to the test.
Research questions
- Does i) an improved Canvas structure and ii) the introduction of joint classes have the desired effect, i.e. do they offer supportive scaffolding that helps to lower the cognitive work load for students?
- Does the offered scaffolding via the joint classes helps to iii) increase students’ comprehension of the course content and iv) enhance an active study attitude?
There is no information about this study yet.
View the preliminary results of Sanjay Bisseur’s research (pdf).
About this research
In recent years, traditional teaching has changed with to the introduction and adoption of technological innovations such as online learning, mobile platforms, and cloud based resources. Blended learning combines face-to-face learning with online instruction in hybrid courses.
The COVID pandemic brought massive changes to the blended learning environment, including videoconferencing, podcasting and other media. The accelerated adoption of online education presents many challenges towards the optimal design of the educational experience. In this research, Sanjay Bissessur looks for more understanding towards increasing the effectiveness of online education, and blended learning in general.
Sanjay Bissessur structures the learning process in an blended learning environment along the three main dimensions of the Community-of-Inquiry Framework of Garrison et al. (2000). This highly influential theoretical framework constructs the emergence of new pedagogies, learning strategies and methods aimed at increasing effectiveness and quality of learning along the extent that students construct deep and meaningful learning outcomes from their learning experience through a group-based inquiry process (labeled cognitive presence) with their ability to identify with the group (i.e. social presence) and the extent teachers moderate and guide the learning experience (i.e. teaching presence).
The blended learning environment presents a trade off between the ease and abundance of interaction with the tendency to use the online environment primarily for sharing and comparing information rather than critical reflection and collaborative discussion. I aim to find how teachers can moderate the self-regulation of students to increase the degree in which students actively participate their own learning experience in a blended learning environment.
View the preliminary results of Karin Venetis’s research (pdf).
About this research
How to stimulate Active Learning behaviour in students – without diminishing, and even improving, student’s motivation to learn (more)? Studies have shown that active learning tools that help students prepare before class are very effective and enhance students’ learning outcomes. However, students feel pressured by these types of tools and perceive them to be less useful for their learning than they actually are.
Karin Venetis researches Active Learning behaviour and how to stimulate this with the use of the online activation software, Perusall, that encourages students to prepare and discuss lesson materials together before class. She conducted an experiment in which half of the students received additional positive feedback on their Perusall scores from teachers, and the other half did not.
So far, her research seems to suggest that the teacher does have an impact on how students behave in their Perusall assignments and how they perceive those assignments. It seems that positive feedback increases perceived competence, and reduces students’ perceived loss of autonomy when using these systems, which is the main driver of the negative side effect of using these tools.
Karin’s research provides interesting insights into how these tools can be used in EB courses to make the courses more interesting. The study clearly shows that students find lectures more interesting and participate more confidently in discussions when they prepare them using Perusall (as opposed to their “normal” preparations).
Theme 2: (Formative) assessment and feedback
View the preliminary results of Joost Krijnen’s research (pdf).
About this research
All students at Amsterdam University College take the same, mandatory academic writing courses. However, these students have highly diverse disciplinary backgrounds, and many of them have expressed a preference for different writing courses for the three different majors. In turn, writing teachers have informally observed differences in academic writing performance among students from the different majors. While there are sound reasons for offering the same writing courses to all students, the question does arise whether the course Advanced Research Writing is able to cater to the needs of all students effectively.
This project aims to achieve a better understanding of students’ academic writing performance in the course Advanced Research Writing in order to assess and improve the course’s effectiveness. Combining a statistical analysis of grading rubrics with a content analysis of student papers, the project will first examine how students from the three majors perform with regard to various aspects of academic writing. It will pay particular attention to any possible disciplinary patterns in writing performance. Based on the outcomes of these initial analyses, the project will develop and implement a number of small-scale, design-based teaching interventions, aimed at reducing the most striking academic writing performance inequalities among students of various disciplinary backgrounds.
This research offers a data-driven method to assess, improve, and re-assess academic writing teaching. If successful, the approach could be applied to other parts of the curriculum as well.
View the preliminary results of Joost van Kordelaar’s research (pdf).
About this research
Rubrics can increase objectivity in reviewing. However, lecturers often report that rubric descriptions deviate from their own judgments of student reports. Such discrepancies may reduce rubric quality and the satisfaction of lecturers who use rubrics. This study examines the quality of rubrics among teachers with extensive experience in using rubrics. In addition, it examines which lecturers characteristics are predictive of teacher satisfaction with rubrics.
A computer program will be developed to assess the quality of rubrics. This program will be used to examine the reliability, internal consistency, and constructs measured by the rubric. The analysis will be done on the rubrics of all writing assignments within the Bachelor of Psychobiology in the academic year 2020-2021, but can easily be applied to other rubrics as well.
Lecturer satisfaction with rubrics and teacher characteristics such as experience and involvement in rubric development will be determined with a questionnaire among reviewers of graduation reports of Psychobiology students. A prediction model will then be developed to identify the teacher characteristics that best predict lecturer satisfaction.
Research questions
- What is the quality of rubrics in undergraduate Psychobiology?
- Can lecturer satisfaction with rubrics be predicted by experience and involvement in rubric development?
Also read Joost’s story and experiences as a research fellow.
There is no information about this study yet.
View the preliminary results of Niels Smits’s research (pdf).
About this research
In Dutch higher education (UvA included) compensatory testing (‘mute the impact of an unsatisfactory grade through the availability of another, satisfactory grade’) has become a popular testing regime for combining partial course grades. Although the main stated reason for considering compensatory testing is the low reliability of test scores, it equally suffers from unreliability; the difference with the traditional or ‘conjunctive’ approach is the type of classification error which prevails. Moreover, compared to a conjunctive regime it treats students unequitably.
Also, it is often assumed that students behave similarly under different testing regimes, and empirical studies evaluating this assumption (claiming that it holds) have been shown to use methodologically unsound approaches.
In this study, test data from a series of exams at POW/FMG are studied by Niels Smits, for two goals:
- First to show how the effect of testing regimes may be studied by looking at similarities and dissimilarities between and within item sets of different exams.
- Second to empirically determine the extent to which different testing regimes are associated with different patterns of partial grades.
Theme 3: Didactics within specific disciplines
About this research
Academic Writing is a core component in many curricula, but how and why do we teach it? This study focuses on academic writing in one first-year course in the BSc Cognition, Language and Communication, and to what extent the language in which students write (Dutch or English) influences their performance. It looks at how academic writing is instructed in the context of two contrast-and-compare assignments and to what extent writing improves after instruction. Subsequently, it asks whether these assignments affect students’ understanding of the literature on the final exam. While all instruction will be in Dutch, and most of the literature in the course is in English, half the students will be asked to complete the writing assignments in English and half will be asked do so in Dutch. This division allows us to study the effects of language both in the context of Learning to Write as in the context of Writing to Learn, contributing not only to discussions on the hows and whys of academic writing in the undergraduate curriculum, but also to discussions on the international and multilingual classroom.
View the preliminary results of Jessika Buitenweg’s research (pdf).
About this research
Adjusting to university life can be difficult for many students. There are large differences in how each student copes with the adjustments. Some students encounter (large) study delays or drop out of the programme before reaching the end of the first year. In order to prevent losing bright and talented students it is essential to identify which students have a higher risk of failing one or more of their courses, so we can offer them suitable study skills training or other help in time.
Research question
- What are the predictors of study success, delay and dropout in first year Psychobiology students?
Theme 4: Pedagogical approaches
There is no information about this study yet.
View the preliminary results of Rosanne van Wieringen’s research (pdf).
About this research
The world is getting more and more complex. This places a great deal of importance on being able to understand and solve a variety of dynamic societal challenges. Universities are expected to educate a new generation of academic professionals who can respond to these challenges. Hence, students must be equipped with transformative competencies by experiencing transformative practices build into curricula. Transformative learning, about the process of actively changing a worldview, is therefore introduced in academia. The existing course Placemaking provides education in which students experience a transformative practice. The notion of this research is to identify what transformative learning entails according to students.
Therefore, the research question is: what does transformative learning necessitates according to Placemaking students to be able to become societal transformers?
Also read Rosanne’s story and experiences as a research fellow.
View the preliminary results of Lela Mosemghvdlishvili’s research (pdf).
About this research
How can we enrich teaching to make learning more (personally) meaningful for students? How can we invite our students’ lived experiences and embodied ways of knowing into classroom discussions? How can we truly bring our students at the center of education?
In this project, Lela Mosemghvdlishvili explores contemplative pedagogy – a novel approach to teaching. Contemplative pedagogy facilitates students’ reflection, meaning-making, and deeper self-knowledge; it complements traditional teaching methods. In this approach, first and second-person experiential, embodied, and introspective exercises are integrated into the classroom as a way to engage with the study material. By giving more significance to the learner’s inner world (thoughts, experiences, embodied emotions, feelings), students are genuinely put at the center of the learning process.
The reemergence of the value of contemplative exercises for higher education is reinforced by 40 years of research into the effects of meditation and other forms of contemplation-inducing practices. Recent insights through cognitive, behavioral, and neuroscientific studies provide compelling evidence of the benefits of contemplation, including improved mental and emotional outcomes, conceptual flexibility, and deeper self-awareness.
The two-year project is concerned with translating and making contemplative pedagogy more accessible to university teachers by developing a comprehensive model through which teachers can create their own in-class activities and assignments. To communicate findings, Lela regularly gives workshops and guest talks in and outside the University of Amsterdam.
Are you a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and would you like to attend a workshop/course in contemplative pedagogy?
About Lela Mosemghvdlishvili
Dr. L. (Lela) Mosemghvdlishvili (they/she) is a transformative educator working on the intersection of academia, wisdom traditions, and embodied practices. Their background is in communication sciences. At the University of Amsterdam, Lela teaches interdisciplinary research methods and integrative seminars on Societal Challenges and coordinates Academic Skills at the honors program PPLE. Alongside university teaching, Lela works as a Learning Facilitator at the Synthesis Institute Psychedelic Practitioner Program. A notable part of Lela’s life is devoted to the ongoing study and practice of wisdom traditions, embodied practices, and regular retreats for introspection. These modalities are vital sources of insight and knowledge for them.
View the preliminary results of Chantal Vlaskamp’s research (pdf).
About this research
The switch from high school to University requires students to adapt and to take responsibility of their own learning process. Self-regulating learning requires students to set goals and monitor and evaluate their learning process. In addition, knowing how to learn and having autonomous motivation to learn are important factors.
At the BSc Pyschobiology, the visible trajectories tool is implemented. Here, an overview of the courses with corresponding learning goals and how these come back in other courses during the curriculum is provided ánd students get insight in their performance on these learning goals. In combination with feedforward conversations with their mentors where they reflect on their learning, students are given the ideal environment to self-regulate their learning.
The goal is to evaluate if self-regulated learning is indeed stimulated by the tool and conversations, how the tool is evaluated by students and to get insight in which students self-regulate their learning.