From the original paper: "The effect sizes indicate that on average, student performance on examinations and concept inventories increased by 0.47 SDs under act

From the original paper: "The effect sizes indicate that on average, student performance on examinations and concept inventories increased by 0.47 SDs under active learning (n = 158 studies), and that the odds ratio for failing was 1.95 under traditional lecturing (n = 67 studies)." Averages are not a very comprehensive measure for efficacy in a teaching environment. I am glad they included the failure rates too, but people here should not be so quick to jump to changing out the entire methodology based on two numbers. Different students learn differently, and ideally you would look at the distribution in student performance for different balances of teaching methods. Having said that, they are onto something.