Exploring a modification to the readiness assurance process in team-based learning

Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning instructional strategy shown to improve student learning in large-enrollment courses. Although early implementations of TBL proved generally effective in an undergraduate exercise physiology course that delivered an online individual readiness assurance test (iRAT) before class, the instructor reported student dissatisfaction with the use of identical questions in the team readiness assurance test (tRAT) in class. This study sought to improve the student experience in this course by including different but related question sets for the online iRAT and in-class tRAT. Two sections of an upper-level undergraduate exercise physiology course received both the traditional and modified tRAT, alternating approaches with each course unit. This crossover research design exposed more students to the proposed modification and provided more student perspectives than would be collected through other research designs. An independent-sample t test indicated that the modified TBL format made no difference on performance on course unit exams (P > 0.05). However, student survey qualitative data revealed that 69% of students preferred the modified tRAT method to the traditional form. Student responses on the benefits of the modification, represented here as major themes in the analysis, included better content interaction, use of higher-order thinking, and more effective social experience with teams. Although this study showed that different sets of questions for the individual and team quizzes improved the experience but not performance for the majority of students, some students suggested changes to the modification that could further improve the student experience with TBL.NEW & NOTEWORTHY In an exercise physiology course using an already-modified team-based learning approach, this crossover-designed pedagogy trial investigated the learning impact and student experience of introducing different (but related) questions in the in-class team readiness assurance test (tRAT) compared to those given in the individual readiness assurance test (iRAT) that students completed online before class. This approach may be of interest for instructors experimenting with partially flipped classroom designs in a team-based context.