Beyond Traditional Instruction

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The traditional transmission model is less effective than new approaches to teaching, new study confirms.

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A team of researchers recently conducted a meta-analysis reviewing studies comparing the effectiveness of the traditional transmission model and newer approaches to teaching and learning.

More precisely, the article focused on the teaching of mathematics in mainland China, and analyzed almost 125 studies conducted on over 12,000 students.

In the traditional transmission instructional model, “students’ tasks are to passively acquire teacher-specified knowledge and skills” (all quotes are from the original article.) To the contrary, constructivist approaches envision knowledge as being “actively created by the learner, not passively received from the environment.”

More precisely, the authors focused on the following:

• Problem-based learning: Teachers present real-life situations that give context and meaning to the acquisition of knowledge

• Inquiry-based learning: Teachers do not directly provide knowledge and solutions to students’, but assist and facilitate the learner’s own inquiry and discovery process.

• Cooperative learning : Teachers facilitate students’ group work. Students collaborate towards commong goals by sharing their skills and helping each other succeed.

• Autonomous learning: Teachers help student learn to establish learning objectives and learning plans for themselves, to monitor and adjust their own learning process and methods, and to evaluate their own learning outcomes and make appropriate remediations.

• Script-based learning: Teachers distribute learning scripts, which students use to self-study before class. In class, students share their outcomes and discuss their problems with each other and with their teacher.

Results showed that all 5 approaches were more effective than traditional transmission, with comparable effects equivalent to several months of teaching and learning.

Interestingly, the effect was the strongest for cooperative learning, and the weakest for autonomous learning.

However, the authors also found that improved transmission models were just as effective as constructivist approaches. Such models include:

• Variation teaching: Teachers show many different examples with different nonessential attributes so that students understand the essential attributes of a concept.

• Grouping teaching: Teachers classify students using prior performance, put them into smaller groups, and provide each group level with appropriate curriculum and instruction.

Reference: Xie, Wang, and Hu (2018), “Effects of Constructivists and Transmission Instructional Models on Mathematics Achievement in Mainland China: a Meta-Analysis”, Frontiers in Psychology, October 2018.