11 General introduction students learn more from Passive to Active to Constructive to Interactive. Empirical studies indeed provide support for this hypothesis (24,31,32). Reflecting on the paragraphs above, and the picture that may appear from it, one might assume that the benefits of active learning are clear and undeniable. It might even seem that educators should feel morally obligated to implement active learning and possibly even eliminate methods that could be considered passive. However, before we proceed with this line of thought, it is important to make room for critical perspectives on active learning research. The following paragraphs will describe four critical perspectives. First, the opposition of active and passive learning is not as black and white as it may appear (33). Usually, passive learning methods involve some active learning. In lectures, for example, teachers often ask questions or use digital tools to engage students at some point. Likewise, active learning methods usually include some form of passive learning or knowledge transmission. In a small-group learning setting such as case-based learning, for example, a teacher may explain material through a presentation. In fact, authors suggest that it may not be a question of whether to choose passive or active learning, but rather a question of how to combine them for optimal results (11,18,34). Second, the specific implementation of active learning can vary greatly between studies, making it difficult to aggregate findings. While critically examining sources of variation, researchers have found that studies have compared different active learning methods, amount of in-class and out-of-class time spent on these methods, characteristics of students and teachers, educational settings, disciplines, dependent variables, designs, and methodologies (33,35). These variations may explain why studies have found mixed results in active learning effectiveness, even though meta-analyses report positive outcomes (11,16–18). Meta-analyses adeptly consolidate findings from individual research studies, offering a broad overview, but they are limited in taking into account the variables that can potentially affect the results and meaning of individual studies (35). One author therefore suggests moving from the question ‘does active learning work’ to ‘which active learning methods taught by which instructors, in what kind of contexts and circumstances, lead to significant better learning results for which learners, and are these methods genuinely better than traditional [i.e., passive] methods?’ (35). Other authors suggest that studies should not compare active with passive learning methods, but compare different types of active learning to identify appropriateness and effectiveness (11). Thus, how active learning is implemented and researched influences findings. Third, student engagement is critical in an active learning process, but teachers may find it difficult to recognize in their classrooms. Behavioral engagement can be observed directly. However, this is not possible for cognitive and emotional engagement. They are internal processes. Therefore, they have to be inferred from behavioral cues. This is, at least partly, why teachers use these behavioral cues to assess if their students are engaged and why 1
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