Objectives

This paper presents preliminary results of a meta-analysis that addresses classroom teaching and learning conditions operationalized as various mixtures of so-called student-centered (SC) and teacher-centered (TC) instructional approaches. We introduce a conceptual framework that departs from the oversimplified SC vs. TC dichotomization of teaching practices. Instead, we intend to account for specific combinations of SC and TC qualities of instructional events that would allow for a balanced description of any particular teaching practice and explain its effects on learning. Our results will provide a better picture of the effectiveness of the various combinations of TC and SC instructional practices used in classrooms from elementary school to post-secondary education. We pose the following research questions:

Can SC approaches to instruction be operationally distinguished from TC approaches, and their effects on student achievements be systematically assessed and explained?

What combinations of TC and SC qualities of instructional practices influence learning outcomes the most and what contextual factors moderate these effects? 

Background

An ongoing debate in the education community continues to contrast SC and TC educational practices. This dichotomy, often presented in terms of inductive versus deductive education (Prince & Felder, 2006), largely derives from the growth of pedagogical progressivism and constructivism (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978; Jonassen, 1991; Tobias & Duffy, 2009) and in a sense challenges more traditional TC paradigm that long dominated typical classroom teaching.

In TC environments, the teacher set the objectives, planned lessons, taught students through direct instructional methods, allocated readings, provided guidance, evaluated student progress and assigned grades. In 1964, a massive experiment called Project Follow Through evaluated the efficacy of different instructional strategies (from Direct Instruction to so-called Open Education), especially in mathematics and reading. Among the project major findings was that students learning via direct instruction outperformed students in other instructional conditions by nearly 1.5sd. Despite some criticism regarding the conduct of the project, these findings continue to influence present-day educational practices in the fields of mathematics, science and language (e.g., Klahr, 2009).

Pedagogical ideas associated with the constructivist paradigm suggested new instructional design principles to reduce teacher dominance in TC instruction, namely: 1) create real-world environments that employ the context in which learning is relevant; 2) focus on realistic approaches to solving real-world problems with the instructor acting as a coach and analyzer of the strategies used to solve these problems; 3) stress conceptual interrelatedness, providing multiple representations or perspectives on the content; 4) define instructional goals and objectives as negotiated and not imposed; 5) design evaluations that serve as a self-analysis tool; 6) provide tools and environments that help students interpret multiple perspectives upon the world; 7) favor learning that is internally controlled and mediated by the student (Jonassen, 1991, pp. 11-12). These principles are in part related to the “instructional dimensions” that will be examined here, as are some other recent conceptualizations of SC instruction (e.g., Johnson, 2014).

In contrast with the Project Follow Through results, some later meta-analyses (e.g., Rosen & Solomon, 2007) suggested an advantage for SC instruction (i.e., constructivist pedagogy) over TC instruction (i.e., didactic pedagogy) of up to 0.50sd. Such a large discrepancy between findings for SC and TC instruction suggests that questions of their relative effectiveness are still unsettled. 

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