The gas concept is fundamental for STEM learning, yet many hold misconceptions about gases, such as gases not having material nature nor being conserved in chemical reactions. Some suggest perceptual evidence of existence (such as colour or smell) is key to acknowledging the material nature and subsequently the role of gases in mass conservation. In this paper we did a preliminary exploration of whether a real-time scale with graphical interface can serve as evidence of existence of gases. To do so, we designed and conducted a teaching unit in which preservice primary science teachers (n=4) used a real-time scale to perceive weight change during two chemical reactions in which gases evolved or absorbed. The teaching unit was audiorecorded and observed. We found that two important design elements when introducing live scales were a) hypothesis line graphs to familiarize with the graphical interface and b) the choice of live (as contrast to logged) measurements to promote learners’ attention during observation. Learners displayed subtle signs of trust in and familiarity with the instrument, indicating a potential for the live scale as evidence of existence of gases.
Vi deler erfaringer fra vår bruk av undervisningsaktiviteten "Het Potet". Het Potet har til hensikt å tvinge fram studentaktivitet og -samarbeid, og er samtidig et verktøy som gir omgivelsene innblikk i enkeltstudenter sin faglige forståelse og tenkning. Vi ønsker å understreke det at Het Potet kan tas i bruk i kontekster hvor disse fasettene tradisjonelt sett er særlig fraværende—som i store forelesninger. Målet med denne rapporten er å forklare hvorfor (og når) det kan være en god idé å bruke Het Potet i STEM-undervisning, og å identifisere noen faktorer som kan hjelpe undervisere til å lykkes med teknikken i praksis. Vi rapporterer også fra vår egen bruk av Het Potet i et matematikkemne for førsteårs ingeniørstudenter: Vår opplevelse og en spørreundersøkelse (N = 448) indikerer at dette er en undervisningsaktivitet som studenter setter pris på i overraskende stort monn.
Distrust of science is a societal concern that could be linked to a limited understanding about the nature of science. Scientific models have an essential role as both tools for doing science and for describing and communicating science. This work investigates first-, second- and third-year Norwegian science students’ (N = 757) thoughts about what it means that a model is scientific, and their rating of how scientific different models of chemical bonding are. A review of Norwegian secondary school textbooks (N = 14) shows agreement between the models first-year students claim as familiar, and the models included in textbooks, but models known from school are not rated by first-year students as more scientific than unfamiliar models. Abstract models, such as an MO diagram or a potential energy graph, are rated as highly scientific by all students, regardless of level of familiarity with the model. A thematic analysis of students’ written explanations of what it means that a model is scientific was conducted and resulted in two main themes. The theme “the Truth” describes how students have a high degree of trust in science and what they perceive as scientific models. For the other main theme, “Research”, students more often describe scientific models as a product of science than as a tool for doing science and scientific research. In science education, focusing on scientific models’ role in the process of science could increase students’ understanding of scientific models and the nature of science.
This paper presents the Tutorial Educational Program (TEP), an initiative designed to enhance academic engagement through integrated experiences in teaching, research, and community outreach. Inspired by the Brazilian Programa de Educação Tutorial (PET) and adapted to a Swedish higher education context, TEP offers undergraduate and master’s students structured opportunities to participate in departmental activities while developing critical, collaborative, and leadership skills. The program addresses challenges such as low retention in technology-related fields and employs a selective admissions process that emphasizes academic performance, motivation, and gender balance. Students work as part-time assistants under faculty supervision across three interconnected pillars. TEP follows a cyclical operational methodology of recruitment, participation, evaluation, and transition. This study evaluates TEP using multi-stakeholder survey and interview data, showing that participants perceive gains in pedagogical competence, academic identity, research understanding, and time-management skills. Teachers and administrators report increased reliability, continuity, and reduced coordination workload, while broader benefits for departmental teaching and outreach are identified. Early experiences indicate other benefits, including reduced administrative workload, continuous teaching and outreach support, and development of transferable skills. These findings highlight the potential of structured mentorship programs to support student development, research readiness, and institutional collaboration in higher education.
Profession-oriented and discipline-based higher education programs differ significantly in implementing work-integrated learning (WIL). Discipline-based programs in fields like mathematics, biological and social sciences have only recently begun to integrate WIL and often lack comprehensive development. This umbrella review examines pedagogical strategies and key stages for advancing WIL in discipline-based curricula. Systematic searches across several databases yielded 1,651 abstracts published January 2000 to November 2023. These were screened, focusing on WIL in discipline-based programs. An in-depth review and thematic analysis of 11 selected reviews revealed an underrepresentation of discipline-based programs in WIL literature. Themes include curriculum design, assessment, learning outcomes, employability, satisfaction, internship stakeholders, international placements, and Indigenous students. The findings address barriers and promotors to WIL and can be used to support educators, practitioners, leaders, and researchers in enhancing WIL. Specifically, WIL should be integrated, relevant, and authentic, and it should involve all stakeholders, focus on pedagogics through constructive alignment, and emphasize learning as crucial for success.
Women have been found to experience lower sense of belonging compared to men in STEM classrooms, which can lead to underperformance and withdrawal from STEM programs. Sense of belonging is believed to impact how students respond to challenges, which can subsequently affect whether students remain engaged in their coursework and how they perform in the course. Most research about sense of belonging has occurred in the United States, and other countries remain understudied. Scandinavia is an interesting context because there is high gender equality broadly, but the same gender differences found elsewhere are present at Scandinavian universities, where more men earn STEM degrees than women. We studied students’ sense of belonging in four STEM courses at a university in Norway. We employed a mixed-methods study with a concurrent triangulation design and found that women had significantly lower sense of belonging compared to men, and that students with lower sense of belonging received lower course grades. We asked students an open-ended question about the challenges they faced in their courses and how they responded. We found that students with low sense of belonging disproportionately reported feeling overwhelmed and stressed. In their responses to the open-ended question, students shared desired changes to course structure and instruction. Based on those comments, we highlight evidence-based practices that instructors can use to improve their students’ sense of belonging.
Research studies within higher education have often focused on student learning, and on the role of the educator in creating effective learning. In today’s increasingly student-focused interactive classroom, there is a heightened need to consider the role of the students, and their awareness of their influence on the learning environment and their effect on a lecturer’s drive and enthusiasm. Classroom incivility, which covers a wide range of negative student behaviour, is emerging as an increasingly problematic aspect within higher education. Even minor disturbances can accumulate to have significant impact on the lecturer’s confidence, motivation and enthusiasm. In course design we need to consider the classroom perhaps less like students with a teacher, and more like a sports team with a coach. The idea is ultimately to work together to achieve the desired learning goals, and the ability of a team to perform lies in the hands of both players and coach.
Comparative judgement (CJ) draws on the idea that it is easier to judge which of two objects weighs more, than to judge the weight of one object. In education, CJ can be used to rank students’ responses to a task, as an alternative to assessing each response due to marking rubrics. Research has shown rankings made by students to be valid and reliable, and hence possible to use as a base for summative assessment. Moreover, research has indicated that assessment by CJ can serve as a learning activity for students, i.e., enhance students’ learning. This paper reports from an exercise in a calculus course, where the students judged each other’s responses by CJ. One of the purposes of the exercise was to explore whether the CJ-process would provide a learning opportunity for the students. The exercise was compulsory, but the results did not count towards their final grade. First, the students were required to respond to the conceptual task “How would you describe the derivative?” Their one-page responses were uploaded to the web engine No More Marking(NMM). NMM randomly selects pairings of responses, where students by a mouse click should judge which response shows the best understanding of the derivative. Each student should fulfil at least 11 such pairwise judgements. The research data contain students’ responses to the task (N = 64), output from NMM based on students’ judgements (N = 61), and student interviews (N = 5). However, the results of this paper are based mainly on data generated by the five interviewees. Excerpts from the interviews support that CJ can improve students’ learning. Despite this, output from NMM shows the interviewees spent rather short time on their judgements. This ambiguity reveals the question of whether active participation in CJ can improve students’ learning still needs further exploration.
Active learning is increasingly implemented in higher education, yet students' perspectives on this pedagogical approach remain diverse. This study explores geoscience students' views on active learning within a course at the University of Bergen (UiB) and in relation to their broader study program. Through longitudinal qualitative interviews with two student cohorts, we identified seven main categories related to active learning with few subcategories each: student views on specific active-learning approaches, on instructor characteristics, on assessment systems and exams, on feedback for learning, on prerequisites for active learning, and on active learning vs. other approaches. Four central conclusions were drawn. First, student views on active learning varied significantly, ranging from highly supportive to critical, expressing a diversity of views on active learning. Second, students distinguished between their opinions on active learning in theory and its practical execution, often expressing appreciation for its benefits despite challenges in adapting to new learning strategies. Third, students struggled with balancing autonomy and structured guidance, as active learning frequently disrupted their established study habits. Fourth, time played a crucial role in shaping student attitudes—initial frustration with active learning often gave way to long-term recognition of its effectiveness in fostering deeper learning. These findings suggest that successful implementation of active learning requires addressing student expectations, providing structured support, and considering the broader curricular context. The study highlights the need for longitudinal assessments of student perspectives to fully capture the evolving nature of their experiences with active learning.
In Norwegian tertiary education, physics students typically spend considerable time on mandatory problem-solving assignments that they need to pass to qualify for the final exam. Frequently, the summative dimensions of these assessments are emphasized to a higher degree than the formative ones, which may limit the learning potential. In response, we modified these assignments by incorporating self-assessment, peer learning, and reflective practice, aiming to enhance formative feedback and student engagement. This paper reports on the implementation of these modified assignments in two physics courses at UiT the Arctic University of Norway. Using student responses to an end-of-semester survey (N=64), we explore how the students participated in and perceived the modified assignments and their outcomes. The results indicate a predominantly positive response and a sense of improved learning, especially among first-semester students. Nevertheless, problem areas were also identified, such as a persistent focus on getting the correct answers rather than the learning process, and challenges with group dynamics. We discuss the implications of these findings for refining the assignments and suggest directions for future research.
Brettspill kan brukes som en engasjerende læringsaktivitet som kan styrke faglig kunnskap, forståelse, motivasjon og et positivt læringsmiljø blant studenter. Vi har utviklet et nytt brettspill, Metallmani, der spillerne styrer hver sin bedrift innen metallurgisk industri. Underveis må spillerne kjøpe råmaterialer og investere i ulike prosessanlegg, betale for å kjøre prosessene, selge produktene, og forholde seg til CO2-avgift og andre samfunnsmessige forhold. Vinneren er den som sitter igjen med mest penger når spillet er slutt. Spillet ble utviklet for bruk av bachelor kjemiingeniør-studenter, men kan også brukes i for eksempel Kjemi 2 på videregående skole. Basert på tilbakemeldinger fra studenter (N = 45) gir spillet studentene en anledning til å bruke norske faguttrykk, få oversikt over sammenhengen mellom metallurgiske prosesser og bærekraft, og gir økt interesse for metallurgiske prosesser. I tillegg svarer studentene at de liker å spille spillet og syns det var morsomt. Bruk av spillet er både en faglig og en sosial aktivitet, som gir et godt utgangspunkt for utvikling av kompetanser i et trygt læringsmiljø. Det er også mange muligheter for å videreutvikle spillet og å bruke det på ulike måter.
How we teach is strongly influenced by the culture we teach in, especially what (we believe) our colleagues think is good and acceptable. Understanding the reluctance to changes in teaching practice, including fear of disapproval from colleagues and students, investigating and reappraising those fears, and starting to talk about alternative interpretations is a first step towards overcoming the inertia with inhibits changes in teaching practices that are urgently needed for a sustainable future. To start these conversations and work towards change, we here present a teaching situation. A teacher, author 1, stepped out of the culturally accepted role according to feedback from a colleague. Triggered by this feedback, the teacher questioned herself on whether this part of the lecture was appropriate and on how the students perceived the situation, and talked to another colleague, author 2, about the situation. To inform the reflection, we asked students for feedback. We speculate on and discuss the implications of their responses, and invite you to join the conversation.
Various studies have focused on the relationship between grades and the different forms of assessment used in higher education. To contribute to these discussions, in this article we have analysed the relationship between form of assessment and grade in computer science and electrical engineering courses at the University of Stavanger. These are common courses in modern universities, not only in Norway, and represent a combination of skill- and competence-oriented courses. As a basis for examining the differences between grades and forms of assessment, we focus on grade distributions. In addition, attention is also paid to the differences in the proportion of students with the best and the lowest grades, for different forms of assessment. We show that there is a difference between forms of assessment and average grade. Furthermore, the proportion of students with the best and the lowest grades is largely affected by the form of assessment.
Den 5.-6. mai 2025 ble MNT-konferansen arrangert i Trondheim. MNT-konferansen har som formål å fremme kvaliteten og relevansen til MNT-utdanningene gjennom å bidra til forskningsbasert og vitenskapelig tilnærming til undervisning og læring – SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning).Tema for konferansen i år var «Kompetanse – mer enn summen av kunnskaper og ferdigheter. Hvordan skal vi designe utdanningsløp med fokus på kompetanse?» Artikkelsamlingen fra MNT-konferansen 2025 inneholder konferansens 60 bidrag om utdanning, undervisning og læring i MNT-fagene.
Gender inequality in the academic context is influenced by implicit bias – namely the process of automatic associations. Implicit gender biases might influence teaching, assessment, review, and recruitment processes and hence equality within higher education. Data on the extent to which implicit gender bias in relation to career choices is present in the general population has been collected during many years in the web-based Project Implicit but has not, to the best of our knowledge, yet been investigated among teaching staff in a STEM-focused faculty at a Swedish university. In this study, we measured the implicit gender bias of 51 participants with teaching experience, ranging from doctoral students to professors at the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University (LTH). Our results show that implicit gender bias – where men are more closely associated with STEM subjects and women with liberal arts subjects – is present, even though the majority did not indicate beforehand that they explicitly associate either men or women with STEM. We further show that our results compare well to those of Project Implicit. The main takeaways from this paper are: there is a widespread issue of implicit gender bias among teaching staff at LTH and the population at large; and there is a dire need for increased awareness of such mechanisms to approach the goal of a gender-equal academic environment.
Mange studenter forbinder programmering med det å skrive kode i et programmeringsspråk, men programmeringsprosessen er mye mer enn koding. Programmering er en måte å tenke, dekomponere, og løse problemer på, hvor det som regel ikke finnes ett fasitsvar. I undervisning i programmeringsfag kan det av og til være vanskelig å få studentene til å planlegge og reflektere rundt de valgene de tar når de koder, og de ender ofte opp med å velge første løsning de finner. I dette prosjektet er det gjennomført en pilotstudie hvor to ulike studentaktive læringsmetoder er implementert i et programmeringsfag. Metodene skal hjelpe studentene å forstå at programmering er mer enn å kode, og skal lærer studentene ulike deler av programmeringsprosessen. De to aktivitetene som er brukt i prosjektet er grubleoppgaver og muntlig obligatorisk oppgave, som begge oppfordrer til kreativitet, refleksjon, og problemløsning hos studentene. English abstract: Many students associate programming with writing code in a programming language, but the programming process is much more than coding. Programming is a way of thinking, decomposing, and solving problems, where there is usually no single correct answer. In teaching programming subjects, it can sometimes be difficult to get students to plan and reflect on the choices they make when coding, and they often end up choosing the first solution they find. In this project, a pilot study was conducted where two different student-active learning methods were implemented in a programming course. The methods are intended to help students understand that programming is more than coding and to teach them various parts of the programming process. The two activities used in the project are brain teasers and oral assignment, both of which encourage creativity, reflection, and problem-solving among students.
Introductory videos play a vital role in enabling active learning in the flipped classroom model, but guidelines for their content and structure are lacking, especially regarding specific learning processes. To address this gap, we developed a series of introductory videos intended to stimulate elaborative encoding of new physics principles. Over 60 introductory videos were produced, each covering a single physics principle or definition. These videos featured a brief intro, a pretest with elaborative encoding questions, answers to each question, a posttest, and an equation retrieval prompt. In a course with approximately 150 students, we conducted student interviews (n = 13) and surveys from two cohorts (n = 50 and 44). The students varied in how and whether they engaged with the videos. Several students noticed a large difference in how much they learned from lectures. The students felt that the videos provided a good overview and made it easier to learn the content of the course. Furthermore, 73% of the survey respondents would be "very disappointed" if they lost access to the videos, underscoring their perceived importance in the learning process. Our framework for introductory videos in physics can make it easier for lecturers to incorporate a flipped classroom approach with videos.
Various studies have focused on the relationship between grades and the different forms of assessment used in higher education. To contribute to these discussions, in this article we have analysed the relationship between form of assessment and grade in computer science and electrical engineering courses at the University of Stavanger. These are common courses in modern universities, not only in Norway, and represent a combination of skill- and competence-oriented courses. As a basis for examining the differences between grades and forms of assessment, we focus on grade distributions. In addition, attention is also paid to the differences in the proportion of students with the best and the lowest grades, for different forms of assessment. We show that there is a difference between forms of assessment and average grade. Furthermore, the proportion of students with the best and the lowest grades is largely affected by the form of assessment.
Games are key pedagogical activities that engage students in problem-solving, critical thinking, and analytical ways of thinking. This paper introduces how we integrated Zendo, a game of inductive logic, into our teaching practices. To explore the impact, we collected the data from students in their active engagement with the interactive boardgame learning environment using a quantitative survey as well as an open-ended questionnaire where 16 students documented their in-context experiences, perceptions, and responses. We analysed the quantitative data through descriptive analysis while inductively coding the qualitative data to reveal the impact of the game on the students. The quantitative analysis showed a positive impact of the game on five different constructs related to learning, such as affective factors, collaborative learning, higher order thinking, and metacognition, while the qualitative data revealed four categories including low stake learning environment, collaboration and socio-cultural influences, awareness of own inductive learning, and inspiration for learning, supporting traditional approaches. These appeared to be aligned with the sociocultural perspective, based on the idea that social interaction plays a crucial role in learning. The collected experiences show that games may supplement traditional homework, providing a learning environment that triggers students’ cognitive (reflect and internalize) and social (interact and socialize) processes, an essential supporting element of learning. Through the lens of social culture, it not only enhances student engagement but also facilitates collaborative learning experiences. Additionally, within the framework of socio-constructivism, gamification serves as a powerful tool to foster active participation, social interaction, and the co-creation of knowledge among students.
Undergraduate introductory STEM courses often rely on few, high-stakes exams to assess student learning. This assessment strategy engenders high test anxiety and negatively impacts academic performance. We know little about how students want to be assessed—particularly those who experience high test anxiety. Applying a humanist learning framework, we asked students at a university in Norway to envision their ideal assessment practice. Our analyses affirm that test anxious students performed worse in their STEM courses, and students with marginalized identities in STEM were more test anxious. Additionally, we found that students overwhelmingly want more assessments. We also found that first-generation students, a student group rarely studied in Norway, want different types of assessments to replace high-stakes exams. In sum, student preferences aligned with assessment practices known to reduce the impact of test anxiety. Our results support calls for creating STEM environments where student voices are valued.
