Exploring seminar learning in relation to students, teachers and context

Abstract

Seminar learning Veterinarians nowadays need to be equipped with knowledge and skills such as critical scientific thinking, analysing information, problem solving, and making decisions. Development of these skills demands other instructional methods than the traditional ‘transmission of knowledge’ through lecturing. Based on the socio-constructivist theory of learning, health sciences curricula have introduced active group-learning methods. A commonly used activating group learning method is the seminar, the central topic of this thesis. A seminar is defined as: “a learning session facilitated by a content expert during which a group of some 25 students discusses questions and issues emerging from assigned readings, with the underlying idea being that students learn through confrontation with problems of practical relevance.” In this thesis we intend to develop a greater understanding of seminar learning by answering the general research question: “How do students, teachers and context contribute to the effectiveness of seminar learning in a hybrid veterinary curriculum?” Five specific research questions are investigated to address this general question: 1. Which aspects influence seminar learning according to students? 2. Which aspects influence seminar learning according to teachers? 3. What are the relations between factors that relate to seminar learning? 4. How do factors that relate to seminar learning predict students’ academic achievement? 5. How do factors that influence seminar learning explain the teaching performance in seminars? To be able to answer these questions a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. Focus group studies with students and teachers demonstrated diverse aspects that affect seminar learning according to these stakeholders: seminar teacher, student, seminar goals and questions, facilitating methods used within the seminar, group functioning, preparation, facilities, course schedule and alignment, and assessment. These key aspects contain sub-aspects, such as the amount and type of seminar questions, group size, atmosphere, interaction and amount and clarity of preparatory materials. Through questionnaire studies, using statistical methods like principal factor analysis, reliability analysis and multi-level regression analysis, the relationships between abovementioned aspects and their effect on teaching performance and end-of-course exams were investigated. 988 questionnaires on 80 seminar groups with 36 teachers in six different courses in a veterinary curriculum were analysed. Results showed that relationships between the abovementioned aspects are rather complex. ‘Group interaction’ in seminars had a firm positive relationship with ‘teaching performance’, indicating that students relate good teaching performance with the ability for group interaction. Correlations between the factors ‘extent of student’s preparation’ on one hand and ‘group interaction’, ‘seminar content’ and ‘teaching performance’ on the other hand were small and not statistically significant. The effect of ‘group size’ on ‘teaching performance’ was small and negative. It appeared that abovementioned factors could not sufficiently predict end-of-course exam scores. This calls for further investigation of the relation between the objectives of seminar learning and assessment of seminar learning. This thesis ends with practical strategies on how to ensure that seminars can be used to their full advantage, e.g. by clarifying and training the underlying philosophy of seminar learning to teachers and students.