Does Active Learning Classroom Support Student Innovation Across Disciplines?

Recent developments in Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) research have demonstrated the positive effects on student learning, such as improving in-class engagement, encouraging student interaction and enhancing learning attitude. However, these studies were either overly disciplinary focused or were conducted under very general and open situations. There has been very little information on the effect of ALCs on student learning across disciplines. The aim of the present study was to determine the positive impacts of ALC on students' creative and innovative learning, from students' own perception, across different disciplines. Quantitative data on students' learning experience was gathered from all 159 courses of a Gateway Education program, a core curriculum of a research intensive university in Hong Kong. The 9,775 valid student responses were grouped into three Distributional Areas according to the course discipline. The three Distributional Areas were: (1) Arts and Humanities, (2) Study of Societies, Social and Business Organizations, and (3) Science and Technology. T-tests were used to analyze the impacts of ALC on creative and innovative learning. It was found that the effect was highly disciplinary dependent. Courses in Arts and Humanities reported receiving significantly better student perception when adopted ALC, while courses in Science and Technology also indicated a good improvement in learning experience under the ALC environment. It was also shown that courses in the Study of Societies, Social and Business Organizations had no significant benefit reported from the use of ALC. This disciplinary dependency of positive impacts of ALC on student learning is first reported by this work.