Ignition for Education

Teachers like to tell people that their pedagogies are “research based” or that “research shows” something or other to be true. They seldom give detail of the research, and I’ve come to suspect that it may sometimes be of low quality or exist only in rumor. If one person tells another that a certain conclusion is grounded in research, the second person tells a third, and so on, is the ninth person being presented with the results of sound research or of a game of telephone?

So, I’ve decided to make a habit of surveying published research on claims that other educators tell me are based on research, however much I respect those educators or agree with the statements that they tell me are research-based. I’ve begun with one that I agree with very strongly—that students learn better from interactive pedagogies.

Of course, “interactive” is a broad term. A lecture in which only the lecturer communicates anything is not interactive. But what if she takes questions from her students, or questions them at various points in her lecture? Is she then using an interactive pedagogy? Or does she need to go further, by introducing whole class discussion, small group discussion, writing prompts, or…the list could go on. Does she need to start from scratch with an entirely new pedagogy?

In view of the breadth and contestability of the term, I am defining an “interactive pedagogy” as one that involves students in their own learning more than a previously used pedagogy; that makes them more active, less passive in their learning.

On 27 May 2023, I entered the search term “interactive pedagogies” into Google Scholar <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=interactive+pedagogies&hl=en&as_sdt=0,10>. I then examined the top 30 results after I had excluded those that were anything other than a formal study of the efficacy of a single interactive pedagogy (though I cite metanalyses below), were not published in English, or that could not be reached through their link on the results page. I also excluded studies of the efficacy of interactive whiteboard use, as they would have dominated my results by sheer volume. The 30 remaining studies were undertaken on four continents and published between 1997 and 2022 [1]. In some cases, I only had access to the paper’s abstract. In other cases, I was able to read more of the paper, such as the methods, results, and conclusions sections.

Of the 30 studies, 13 were quantitative or mixed methods. The rest were qualitative. Of the quantitative studies, 8 used a control group. All of the qualitative studies affirmed the value of the interactive pedagogies that they examined. With one partial exception[2], the quantitative studies that used a control group affirmed the superiority of the interactive approach to a non-interactive or less interactive approach.

Metanalyses also support its superiority of interactive approaches[3].

In conclusion, everyone who has been saying that interactive pedagogies are better pedagogies, and that research support this view, is right. Not that I doubted it. I’ve just committed myself to fact-checking claims of that nature.

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[1]

Authors	Full Citation	Number of Participants	Age of Participants, other details	Whether quantitative or qualitative	If quantitative, whether control group was used	Whether affirmed interactive pedagogy
Marsella, Johnson, and LaBore	Marsella, Stacy C., W. Lewis Johnson, and Catherine LaBore. “Interactive pedagogical drama.” Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Autonomous agents. 2000.	4	Expectant mothers	Qualitative		Yes
Edwards-Groves	Edwards-Groves, Christine. “Interactive creative technologies: Changing learning practices and pedagogies in the writing classroom.”  Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 35.1 (2012): 99-113.	Students of 5 teachers	Unknown	Qualitative		Yes
Kagawa, Selby, and Trier	Kagawa, Fumiyo, David Selby, and Colin Trier. “Exploring students’ perceptions of interactive pedagogies in education for sustainable development.” Planet 17.1 (2006): 53-56.	9	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
Vinogradova, Yakobyuk, and Zenina	Vinogradova, Marina V., L. I. Yakobyuk, and Natalia V. Zenina. “Interactive teaching as an effective method of pedagogical interaction.” Espacios 39.30 (2018): 15-17.	211	Higher education	Quantitative	No	Yes
McDaniel et. al.	McDaniel, Carl N., et al. “Increased learning observed in redesigned introductory biology course that employed web-enhanced, interactive pedagogy.” CBE—Life Sciences Education 6.3 (2007): 243-249.	1 class, by implication several hundred students	Higher education	Quantitative	Yes. Control group was previous year’s class, taught using traditional lecture format.	Yes
Luchaninov et. al.	Luchaninov, D. V., et al. “Student information competence under conditions of the realization of interactive pedagogical interaction.” Global Media Journal (2016).	92	Higher education	Quantitative	No	Yes
Mowafi and Abumuhfouz	Mowafi, Yaser, and Ismail Abumuhfouz. “An interactive pedagogy in mobile context for augmenting early childhood numeric literacy and quantifying skills.” Journal of Educational Computing Research 58.8 (2021): 1541-1561.	34	3-5 years old	Quantitative	Yes. Participants were divided between control and experimental groups.	Yes
Raz et. al.	APA Raz, Daniella, et al. “Face Mis-ID: An interactive pedagogical tool demonstrating disparate accuracy rates in facial recognition.” Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society. 2021.	Unknown	General public	Qualitative		Yes
Muir et. al.	Muir, Tracey, et al. “Using interactive online pedagogical approaches to promote student engagement.” Education Sciences 12.6 (2022): 415.	13	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
Scornavacca and Marshall	Scornavacca, Eusebio, and Stephen Marshall. “TXT-2-LRN: Improving students’ learning exper ience in the classroom through interactive SMS.” 2007 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS’07). IEEE, 2007.	Unknown	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
Kobylanski	Kobylanski, Magdalena. “Wims: Innovative pedagogy with 21 year old interactive exercise software.” Technology in Mathematics Teaching: Selected Papers of the 13th ICTMT Conference. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019.	Unknown	Higher education	Quantitative–surveys	N/A	Yes
Leung	Leung, Allen. “Boundary crossing pedagogy in STEM education.” International Journal of STEM Education 7.1 (2020): 1-11.	1 class	9th grade	Qualitative		Yes
Boatright-Horowitz	Boatright-Horowitz, Su L. “Useful Pedagogies or Financial Hardships? Interactive Response Technology (Clickers) in the Large College Classroom.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 21.3 (2009): 295-298.	398	Higher education	Quantitative—survey based	N/A	Yes
Macro	Macro, Katherine. “Drama as literacy: Perceptions of an interactive pedagogy.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 20.3 (2015): 337-339.	N/A—personal reflection	High school	Qualitative—personal reflection		Yes
Paige and Kessler	Ware, Paige, and Greg Kessler. “Telecollaboration in the secondary language classroom: Case study of adolescent interaction and pedagogical integration.” Computer Assisted Language Learning 29.3 (2016): 427-450.	1 class	High school	Qualitative		Yes
Deeg, Farrand, and Oakes	Deeg, Megan T., Kathleen M. Farrand, and Wendy Peia Oakes. “Creating space for interactive dialogue during preschool circle time using play-based pedagogies and dramatic inquiry.” Journal of Early Childhood Research 18.4 (2020): 387-403.	Unknown	Preschool, students with language delays	Mixed methods	Yes	Yes
Tavares, Meira, and Amaral	Tavares, Luis Antonio, Matheus Carvalho Meira, and Sérgio Ferreira do Amaral. “Interactive mind map: A model for pedagogical resource.” Open Education Studies 3.1 (2021): 120-131.	Unknown	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
Whitworth et. al.	Whitworth, Karen, et al. “Interactive computer simulations as pedagogical tools in biology labs.” CBE—Life Sciences Education 17.3 (2018): ar46.	513	Higher education	Quantitative	Yes	Yes
Shapiro et. al.	Shapiro, Amy M., et al. “Clickers can promote fact retention but impede conceptual understanding: The effect of the interaction between clicker use and pedagogy on learning.” Computers & Education 111 (2017): 44-59.	Two experiments: 858         299	Higher education       Higher education	Quantitative	Yes         Yes	For factual recall but not for conceptual understanding   No
Amershi et. al.	Amershi, Saleema, et al. “Pedagogy and usability in interactive algorithm visualizations: Designing and evaluating CIspace.” Interacting with Computers 20.1 (2008): 64-96.	Unknown	Higher education	Mixed methods	Unknown	Yes
Dowling	Dowling, Carolyn. “The socially interactive pedagogical agent within online learning communities.” International Conference on Computers in Education, 2002. Proceedings.. IEEE, 2002.	Unknown	Unknown	Qualitative		Yes
Van Amstel and Gonzatto	Van Amstel, Frederick MC, and Rodrigo Freese Gonzatto. “The anthropophagic studio: towards a critical pedagogy for interaction design.” Digital Creativity 31.4 (2020): 259-283.	Unknown	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
Re’em	Re’em, Moshe. “Young minds in motion: interactive pedagogy in non-formal settings.” Teaching and Teacher Education 17.3 (2001): 291-305.	Unknown	Sixth grade	Qualitative		Yes
Fleck et. al.	Fleck, Stéphanie, et al. “” Teegi’s so cute!” assessing the pedagogical potential of an interactive tangible interface for schoolchildren.” Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on interaction design and children. 2018.	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown		Yes
Foran	Foran, John. “The case method and the interactive classroom.” Thought and action 17.1 (2001): 41-50.	N/A—Author discusses own practice over a number of years.	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
ElZomor and Youssef	ElZomor, Mohamed, and Omar Youssef. “Coupling haptic learning with technology to advance informal STEM pedagogies.” 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. 2019.	Unknown	Higher education	Quantitative	Yes	Yes
Moll and Milner-Bolotin	Moll, Rachel F., and Marina Milner-Bolotin. “The effect of interactive lecture experiments on student academic achievement and attitudes towards physics.” Canadian Journal of Physics 87.8 (2009): 917-924.	Unknown	Higher education	Quantitative	Yes	Mixed indicators
Gleason	Gleason, Benjamin. “Expanding interaction in online courses: integrating critical humanizing pedagogy for learner success.” Educational Technology Research and Development 69.1 (2021): 51-54.	Unknown	Higher education	Qualitative		Yes
Lester	Lester, James C., et al. “The persona effect: affective impact of animated pedagogical agents.” Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems. 1997.	100	Middle School	Quantitative—survey based	N/A	Yes
McGreggor	McGregor, Debra. “Interactive pedagogy and subsequent effects on learning in science classrooms.” Westminster Studies in Education 27.2 (2004): 237-261.	Unknown	Unknown	Quantitative	Yes	Yes

[2] Shapiro et. al., ibid.

[3] Parker, Rachel, and Bo Stjerne Thomsen. “Learning through play at school: A study of playful integrated pedagogies that foster children’s holistic skills development in the primary school classroom.” (2019).

  Thomas, Tieja, et al. “The differential effects of interactive versus didactic pedagogy using computer-assisted instruction.” Journal of Educational Computing Research 49.4 (2013): 403-436.

  Weber, Florian, et al. “Pedagogical agents for interactive learning: A taxonomy of conversational agents in education.” Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems. Austin, Texas. 2021.