Association for Behavior Analysis International

Studies on interteaching have shown that it leads to higher exam scores, more positive course evaluations, and increased levels of student participation in class. Most interteaching research has been conducted in traditional face-to-face classes, thus there is a need to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach in online learning environments. The first presenter will acquaint the audience with interteaching and discuss results of a literature review summarizing the published research that has evaluated interteaching in an online environment. The second presenter will describe results of a study which evaluated the effect of adding cumulative exams to the interteaching method in an online asynchronous class. The third presenter will highlight the findings of a study on the effect of instructor presence on student engagement during online synchronous interteaching discussions. The final presenter will review the interteaching literature related to the effect of different components of interteaching on student outcome, and include a tutorial on how to implement components of interteaching in an online classroom. Together, these four presentations illustrate current online interteaching research and practice in higher education.

Academics, supervisors, and teachers.

The present study is an extension of the previous study presented at ABAI International in 2019. The investigators looked at the effects of instructor presence on student engagement in an online graduate behavior analysis class. Student engagement and instructor presence were evaluated in an interteaching environment. Interteaching is an approach which incorporates engagement between at least two students and/or student with faculty to improve learning and increase fluency of definitions and class material (Boyce & Hineline, 2002). In this study, participants were assigned to groups based on availability and given weekly preparation guides, composed by the instructor, to answer collaboratively and subsequently submit for further clarification. Student engagement and instructor presence were recorded using partial-interval recording and a modified alternating treatments design.

Interteaching is a behavioral instruction method that departs from the traditional lecture format in College settings (Boyce & Hineline, 2002). Though previous research has consistently supported its effectiveness (Querol et al., 2015; Saville et al., 2011; Sturmey et al., 2015), a recent meta-analysis (Hurtado-Parrado et al., under review) found that less than 5% of published studies reported implementation of interteaching in online settings (synchronous or asynchronous). The dramatic increase in remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic has required instructors to adjust their methods accordingly, including those implementing in-person interteaching. The experience of adapting interteaching to synchronous and asynchronous online instruction will be described. While doing so, data related to different components of interteaching and their relation to students’ performance will be discussed, with an emphasis on the relationship between Preparatory Guides (10-15 questions of varying complexity based on the course readings) and Discussions (students peer review the Preparatory Guides of other students). Preliminary data show that scores on Preparatory Guides and Discussions significantly predict 44% of the variance in Quiz scores. A related mediation analysis (Hayes, 2013 - Model 4) indicates that the relationship between Preparatory Guides and Quiz scores is significantly mediated by Discussions (95% CI [.1038, 1.3795]).