i) Students performing in the 50th percentile of a class based on
traditional lecturing would, under active learning, move to
the 68th percentile of that class (13)—meaning that instead
of scoring better than 50% of the students in the class, the
same individual taught with active learning would score better
than 68% of the students being lectured to.
ii) According to an analysis of examination scores in three introductory
STEM courses (SI Materials and Methods), a change of
0.47 SDs would produce an increase of about 6% in average
examination scores and would translate to a 0.3 point increase
in average final grade. On a letter-based system, medians
in the courses analyzed would rise from a B− to a B or from
a B to a B+.