Practice With Feedback Versus Lecture: Consequences for Learning, Efficiency, and Motivation

Many college students drop science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors after struggling in gateway courses, in part because these courses place large demands on students’ time. In three online experiments with two different lessons (measures of central tendency and multiple regression), we identified a promising approach to increase the efficiency of STEM instruction. When we removed lectures and taught participants exclusively with practice and feedback, they learned at least 15% faster. However, our research also showed that this instructional strategy has the potential to undermine interest in course content for less confident students, who may be discouraged when challenged to solve problems without upfront instruction and learn from their mistakes. If researchers and educators can develop engaging and efficacy-building activities that replace lectures, STEM courses could become better learning environments.