Emotion, Engagement, and Case Studies

Three college faculty taught large general biology classes using case studies and personal response systems (clickers). Each instructor taught the same eight cases in two different sections, except the questions within the cases differed. In one section the questions were lower order (LO) factual inquiries, and in the other they were largely higher order (HO) application, analysis, or evaluation queries. Students indicated after each case how much they were engaged or emotionally involved in the cases. Cases ranged significantly in both attributes, but for all cases students indicated that they had a higher engagement level than an emotional involvement. There were minor but statistically significant correlations among engagement, emotion, and learning gains. Generally, cases with LO questions evoked greater engagement and emotion than cases with HO questions.