The Use of Breakout Groups as an Active Learning Strategy in a Large Undergraduate Nutrition Classroom

This paper describes a study conducted to investigate whether breakout groups can be used effectively to enhance student perception of the learning experience, and which measured whether perceived effectiveness is influenced by variables including gender, year of study, overall GPA, degree major, and course grade. Breakout groups consisted of impromptu, temporary groups of 2-5 students that discussed possible answers to a specific problem set provided by the instructor over a period of 10-15 minutes, followed by a large group discussion facilitated by the instructor. In total, 220 students completed a midterm survey and 229 completed a final survey designed to measure student satisfaction. Results of both surveys revealed that over 85% of students either agreed or strongly agreed that using breakout groups enhanced their learning experience, resulted in a more engaging classroom, and enhanced their understanding of the subject matter and their ability to analyze, synthesize, evaluate and retain the subject material. Females perceived the experience more positively than males. The results of this study suggest that breakout groups can be successfully incorporated into a large undergraduate nutrition classroom despite the constraints of a lecture-only course structure.

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