Impact of Learning Assistant Homework Help Hours (LAHHH) on student learning in General Physics course

1. The Impact of LAHHH on Student
Learning in a General Physics Course
Liam Contino; Christopher Dang; Amandip Singh; Drew Turner
Department of Physics at Oregon State University
Learning Assistant Homework Help Hours (LAHHH) are three-hour sessions held weekly
by Physics Learning Assistants. LAHHH is led by Learning Assistants, undergraduate
students who successfully completed the general physics series and who now offer
academic support to students enrolled in the PH 20x series. This research project set out
to investigate the effectiveness of LAHHH as a resource for students enrolled in PH 201
at Oregon State University. The main goal of the LAHHH includes offering a time and
space for peer-to-peer learning, providing classmates an opportunity to work
collaboratively on homework problems, and to study for exams with the help and guidance
of Learning Assistants (LAs). The study focused on evaluating the impact of LAHHH on
student performance in PH 201. The Learning Catalytics clicker system was used to
deliver survey questions regarding LAHHH utilization. GPA data was collected to separate
the students into four GPA quartiles to account for ability-based variance. Finally, midterm
scores were gathered. Collected data was then utilized to map out the relationship
between LAHHH attendance and exam scores. Normalized gains were considered in
order to observe the relationship between changes in LAHHH attendance and changes in
performance between exam 1 and exam 2. Analysis of the data yielded significant
observations in the lowest GPA quartile, as well as improvements in exam scores of
attendees from exam 1 to exam 2. Analysis of normalized gains also showed a positive
relationship between changes in LAHHH attendance and increase in exam scores.
Research Question and Hypothesis
Question: How does LAHHH attendance affect student performance on exams?
Hypothesis: Students that attend LAHHH will have higher midterm scores than
students who do not.
Methods of Inquiry
 Studies conducted at University of Colorado Boulder, California State University Chico,
and Loyola Marymount University support the idea that learning assistants and
interactive engagement have a positive impact on student performance. This would
support our hypothesis since LAHHH has a high amount of LA availability and LA-
student interaction.
Students were surveyed the following questions:
 How many LAHHH sessions did you attend before Midterm 1?
 How many LAHHH sessions did you attend after Midterm 1?
Synthesis & Next Steps
 Students who participate in more interactive engagement opportunities, like LAHHH, tend to
have larger gains than those who do not.
 The data suggests that students who struggle in their studies are more likely to seek out
academic resources, such as LAHHH, in order to better understand the material.
 Selection bias in this study
 Midterm averages of study participants is higher than the average of the class as a whole.
 Students who were not present for class on the day the survey was conducted are not
included.
 In a future study there should be a sign-in sheet at LAHHH sessions.
 Students in this study had to think back 8 weeks to remember how many sessions they
went to, may be inaccurate.
 Data was not collected from students who withdrew from the course before week 8.
Acknowledgements
We want to thank the Oregon State University Physics Department for funding the
Learning Assistant program. Special thanks to Kenneth Walsh, the supervisor of LAHHH
and professor for the General Physics course used in this study, and also to Dennis
Bennett for his contributions to the study design.
References
1.Coletta, Vincent P., and Jeffrey A. Phillips. "Interpreting FCI scores: Normalized gain,
preinstruction scores, and scientific reasoning ability." American Journal of Physics 73.12
(2005): 1172-1182.
2.Otero, Valerie, Steven Pollock, and Noah Finkelstein. "A physics department’s role in preparing
physics teachers: The Colorado learning assistant model." American Journal of Physics 78.11
(2010): 1218-1224.
3.Van Dusen, Ben, Laurie Langdon, and Valerie Otero. "Learning Assistant Supported Student
Outcomes (LASSO) study initial findings." arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.05358 (2015).
Figure 1: LAHHH attendance breakdown by
quartiles: Q1 represents students who were in
the top quartile in terms of cumulative GPA
prior to entering fall term.
Analysis of the charts in Figure 1 shows that
LAHHH attendance was similar for students
from each quartile, and that each GPA quartile
was represented fairly evenly throughout the
term.
Figure 2: Mean + SEM for quartile 1-4 comparing average
midterm 1 scores for students who attended LAHHH prior to
midterm 1 and students who did not attend.
Q1: nNo = 45, nyes = 26, t-test probability, two-tailed, t-value = 0.36, p-value = 0.720
Q2: nNo = 48, nYes = 24, t-test probability, two-tailed, t-value = 1.39, p-value = 0.171
Q3: nNo = 52, nYes = 19, t-test probability, two-tailed, t-value = 1.05, p-value = 0.301
Q4: nNo = 53, nYes = 18, t-test probability, two-tailed, t-value = 2.83, p-value = 0.007
Figure 3: Mean + SEM for quartile 1-4 comparing average
midterm 2 scores for students who attended LAHHH between
midterm 1 and 2 and students who did not attend.
Q1: nNo = 41, nyes = 30, t-test probability, two-tailed, t-value = 0.05, p-value = 0.954
Q2: nNo = 43, nYes = 29, t-test probability, two-tailed, t value = 0.612, p-value = 0.542
Q3: nNo = 54, nYes = 17, t-test probability, two-tailed, t value = 1.02, p-value = 0.318
Q4: nNo = 47, nYes = 24, t-test probability, two-tailed, t value = 0.429, p-value = 0.670
Based on Figure 2 and Figure 3, student GPA can be used as a good indicator of exam
scores. The most drastic change between midterm 1 and midterm 2 occurred in quartile
4, which was analyzed more in-depth in Figure 4.
Data & Findings
Figure 4: Mean + SEM for Q4 students who attended LAHHH before midterm 1
but did not attend after midterm 1.
Midterm 1 (adj) score = Midterm 2avg = 1.03*Midterm 1avg score
n=7, t-test probability, two-tailed, matched pairs t-value = 3.713, p-value = 0.0099.
Investigating the performance of Q4 students further provided some additional insight
into LAHHH effects on student performance. Based on Figure 4, Q4 students who
previously attended LAHHH before midterm 1, but stopped attending LAHHH after
midterm 1, showed about an 8-10% drop on average in midterm 2 scores, another
statistically significant find. These results seem to indicate that continued attendance
aided in providing stability to exam scores from midterm 1 to midterm 2, whereas
decreases in attendance were strongly associated with a significant drop in exam score
averages
Figure 5: Average normalized gains for students based on
change to LAHHH attendance after midterm 1.
n4: 8, n3: 11, n2: 21, n1: 40, n0:142, n-1: 38, n-2: 23
Normalized Gains (Coletta &
Phillips) is a useful analytical tool
to see if increased frequency (in
this case, LAHHH attendance)
correlates with higher academic
gains (in this case, between exams
1 and 2). The normalized gains
analysis quantified the gains in
exam scores made by students
who attended LAHHH hours,
regardless of which GPA quartile
they fell into. The positive trend is
suggestive that those who visited
LAHHH more frequently in
between the two midterms in the
class yielded the highest gains in
midterm score.
Data & Findings, Cont.
Section 1: First, attendance was analyzed to determine if there were enough stu-
dents from each quartile being represented at LAHHH sessions. It was important to deter-
mine that our analysis was not being too heavily influenced by one quartile
Section 2: Given a similar presence at LAHHH from each quartile, this section
set out to determine if breaking up students into quartiles based on GPA was a valid
method to analyze student performance on exams. This was necessary in order to
determine if our matched pairs analysis for Q4 students (Figure 4) would provide valid
results.
Section 3: Based on Figure 2 and Figure 3 we noticed a sharp decline in
midterm scores for quartile 4 students who were attending LAHHH. It was noted that
most of the quartile 4 students who had performed well on the first exam stopped
coming, prior to the second exam. If LAHHH was having no influence on these
students we would expect quartile 4 students average score on midterm 2 to increase;
however, we did not see an increase in midterm 2 scores for quartile 4 students that
did not attend LAHHH.
Section 4: Based on the results from analyzing Figure 4, we sought to further
quantify the correlation present between changes in LAHHH attendances after the first
exam and midterm 2 scores. Figure 5 expresses the usage of normalized gains to
achieve quantification of such correlations.
Data & Findings, Cont.Abstract