Limitations in experimental design mean that the jury is still out on lecturing

Freeman et al. (1) make a valuable contribution to the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in their meta-analysis. However, instead of ceasing to include lecturing as an experimental condition because of its proven inadequacy, I argue that lecturing as it is currently conceptualized be discontinued because it is done so in a methodologically problematic manner. The problem is that the term “lecturing” is often operationalized imprecisely, which raises questions about the reliability of much of the literature. My own research on teaching in STEM classrooms demonstrates that teaching is a multifaceted phenomenon that belies easy categorization. In classes with a …