UCLA

Background: Higher education is more diverse than ever with a drastic increase in college enrollment over the past two decades by those who have not traditionally sought undergraduate credentials, including students with disabilities (Espinosa, Turk, Taylor, & Chessman, 2019; Clouder et al., 2020). Despite the growing demographic diversity of students choosing to pursue postsecondary credentials, equity gaps in postsecondary participation and success still exist (Daempfle, 2003; Ishitani, 2006; Rumberger, 2010; Chang et al., 2011; Sithole et al., 2017; Whitcomb & Singh, 2021). This equity gap is markedly salient within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Accordingly, numerous national efforts targeting improved classroom experiences, representation and retention, and academic achievement of historically underserved and underrepresented undergraduate students in STEM have been conducted with differential rates of success (Ong et al., 2011; Maton et al., 2012; Wilson et al., 2012; LaCosse et al., 2020; Snidman et al., 2022; Palid, Cashdollar, Deangelo, et al., 2023). In particular, students with disabilities experience a multitude of barriers that prevent the effective receipt of needed services to support access to academic material with decreased rates of student success on measures of retention, academic achievement, and on-time graduation when compared to their peers without a disability (Marshak et al., 2010; Sachs & Schreuer, 2011; Kranke et al., 2013; Toutain, 2019; Los Santos et al., 2019). Even with national efforts targeting improved classroom experiences, representation, retention, and academic achievement, this equity gap has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Neuwirth et al., 2021) adding even greater urgency to reconceptualize instructional practices with an eye toward equity in our post-pandemic educational context. There is a clear call for interventions that better support the heterogeneous student experience in large-enrollment STEM courses. In utilizing student experiences to inform the iterative improvement of course materials, educators can center the principal stakeholder in the development of a student’s learning - the student themselves. Further, course interventions that creatively integrate active, student-centered instructional approaches (Brame, 2016; Freeman et al., 2014; Theobald et al., 2020) may promote positive outcomes not only for target groups like students with disabilities but for all students, especially when inclusive teaching practices are implemented in a domain all students experience – the course curriculum.

Objective: This quasi-experimental study utilized a mixed methods approach to evaluate the impact of a course redesign intervention of student-centered instructional practices – including the addition of evidence-based and virtual, active learning modules (ALMs) designed with the desirable difficulties (Bjork, 1994) and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL; CAST, 2018) frameworks – integrated into a redesigned model of a large enrollment undergraduate course in psychology research methods at a large public university. The mixed methods evaluation of the course redesign uses both course-level and student-level data from course evaluation surveys and course exams to develop a comparative understanding of student experiences and academic achievement rates from both before and after the integration of the course redesign intervention.

Findings: Student responses on course evaluations showcased the wide range of feedback that undergraduate students experienced in both iterations of the course. Independent samples t-tests evaluated the change in student ratings about instructional design elements. Analyses displayed that the post-redesign course model led to significantly more positive student experiences and greater impacts on learning in comparison with the pre-redesign course model (p < .001). Students perceived lecture slides, recordings of lectures, updated practice exams, and all components of the ALMs to be the most helpful for learning. The post-redesign course model also showed a relationship between student experiences and academic success. Two univariate ANOVAs analyzed the effect of phase and disability status on student exam scores. All enrolled students, regardless of disability status, performed significantly better on both the mid-quarter and end-quarter cumulative course exams (p < .001).

Conclusions: Considering the wide variability of learners in our classrooms, student ratings and feedback illustrated the benefits of blending physical and online evidence-based, active learning pedagogical practices in a large enrollment STEM course. Student-centered instructional strategies such as ALMs are a cost-effective, flexible tool to boost student learning experiences and academic outcomes while encouraging an equitable experience for a diverse student body.