Students' attitudes toward the introduction of a course website.The purpose of the current experiment was to determine how students at a university with no course management system (and very little use of technology in general) would respond to the introduction of a course website. Participants (67) in the current experiment were students enrolled in an Introductory Psychology course at a small, Midwestern university The P.A. Program is a 2-year program that starts in the summer. The D.O.,Pharm D., and Psy.D are 4-year programs. The D.O. degree is the legal and professional equivalent of the M.D. term 1 of 2005. During the first week of classes, participants were given instructions on how to use the course website and what tools were available via the course website. At the end of the term, participants were given a questionnaire to assess their general attitudes toward the course website and to asses how often they used certain tools of the course website. At the end of the questionnaire, participants were given an opportunity to provide suggestions or comments. Results indicated that general attitudes toward the course website were positive and participants regularly used certain tools of the course website. Final course grades and performance on specific exam questions to a sample of students not using a course website is also made. ********** Recent research on technology in the classroom consistently notes the increased number of colleges and universities offering some form of on-line education (Warren & Holloman, 2005; Buerck, Malmstrom Malmstrom or Malmström is a swedish name and can refer to: Persons
or kohen (Hebrew: “priest”) Jewish priest descended from Zadok (a descendant of Aaron), priest at the First Temple of Jerusalem. The biblical priesthood was hereditary and male. , 2005; Young, 2002; Olsen Olsen may refer to:
put differently , what do the students really think about the use of course management systems in the classroom? (1) Research addressing this question has discovered very similar findings despite the types of courses using the course management systems. For example, students in courses such as research methods (Couch A couch, loveseat, sofa, settee, lounge, davenport or chesterfield are items of furniture for the comfortable seating of more than one person. Compare the joiner's settle, with its separate seat cushions. , 1997), cognitive science cognitive science Interdisciplinary study that attempts to explain the cognitive processes of humans and some higher animals in terms of the manipulation of symbols using computational rules. (Goolkasian, Wallendael, & Gaultney, 2003), psychology as a profession (Warren & Holloman, 2005), and cognitive psychology cognitive psychology, school of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, and in the work of Jean (Yip, 2004) all report a positive attitude toward the use of course management systems. In addition to these research findings in a variety of psychology courses, students have responded to course management systems positively in other disciplines and applications as well like, dental school Noun 1. dental school - a graduate school offering study leading to degrees in dentistry school of dentistry grad school, graduate school - a school in a university offering study leading to degrees beyond the bachelor's degree (Henley Hen·ley or Hen·ley-on-Thames A municipal borough of south-central England west of London. It is the site of a famed annual rowing regatta that was established in 1839. Population: 10,976. , 2003), as a means to teach English 1. English - (Obsolete) The source code for a program, which may be in any language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary produced from it by a compiler. The idea behind the term is that to a real hacker, a program written in his favourite programming language is (Taylor & Gitsaki, 2003), general sciences classes (Liu, Papathanasiou, & Hao hao n. pl. hao See Table at currency. [Vietnamese hào.] Noun 1. , 2001), engineering classes (Cao CAO Chief Administrative Officer (corporate title) CAO Conception Assistee Par Ordinateur (French) CaO Calcium Oxide CAO Collectieve Arbeidsovereenkomst (Dutch) & Bengu, 2000), and social work classes (MacFadden, Maiter, & Dumbrill, 2002). These positive attitudes include: rating the website favorably fa·vor·a·ble adj. 1. Advantageous; helpful: favorable winds. 2. Encouraging; propitious: a favorable diagnosis. 3. , reporting that other instructors should use a course website, and evaluating the on-line information as helpful in learning major concepts and ideas. Additional positive evaluations of course management systems include: rating a course website as highly valuable, reporting daily use of the course website (Heffner & Cohen, 2005), reporting that course material placed on the web is a valuable supplement to traditional classroom lecture approaches, reporting that the web is a good avenue for collecting data and communicating with classmates Classmates can refer to either:
The purpose of the current experiment was to determine how students at a university with no course management system (and very little use of technology in general) would respond to the introduction of a course website. Past research on students' evaluations of course management systems tend to ignore the issue of the campus attitude and prevalence of such systems in other classes. For example, past research has presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. been conducted at other institutions where course managements systems are available to the majority of the professors and are frequently used across disciplines. However, this experiment was conducted in a campus environment where previous opportunities to interact with course management systems were not available. The researcher predicted that students would respond positively to the course website, in particular finding the opportunity to track academic performance in the course and download To receive a file transmitted over a network. In any communications session, "download" means receive, and "upload" means send. The download/upload often implies a big/little scenario, in which data is being downloaded from the "big" server into the "little" user's computer. lecture notes helpful. The researcher, however, was unsure how students would respond to the requirement of using the course website to complete course assignments. Method Participants Participants (67) in the current experiment were students enrolled in an Introductory Psychology course at a small, Midwestern university term I of 2005. The majority of participants were first year students. When signing up for the course, participants were not informed that the course had a website or that part of the course requirements involved the completion of assignments online. Materials Because the university did not offer a course management system, a course website was developed using PageOut (a free website creation tool provided by McGraw-Hill The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., (NYSE: MHP) is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are education, publishing, broadcasting, and financial and business services. Publishing Company). The course website contained the following: a mechanism allowing students to track their academic progress in the course; a chat room allowing students to participate in application assignments and discussions; the syllabus A headnote; a short note preceding the text of a reported case that briefly summarizes the rulings of the court on the points decided in the case. The syllabus appears before the text of the opinion. containing course goals, policies, and expectations; a calendar containing assigned as·sign tr.v. as·signed, as·sign·ing, as·signs 1. To set apart for a particular purpose; designate: assigned a day for the inspection. 2. readings, exam dates, and due dates for assignments; a section containing rubrics for each assignment; a section containing information for improving study skills; practice exam questions; and outlines for each course lecture. Procedure During the first week of classes, participants were given instructions on how to use the course website and what tools were available via the course website. At the end of the term, participants were given a questionnaire to assess their general attitudes toward the course website and to asses how often they used certain tools of the course website. For questions regarding their general attitude toward the course website (e.g., did you like that this course had a course website), participants responded by placing an X on an unmarked scale to indicate their level of agreement from "no, not at all" to "yes, very much (2)." For questions regarding how often they used certain tools of the course website (e.g., how often did you use the course website to check your current grade in the course), participants responded by placing an X on an unmarked scale to indicate their level of agreement from "did not use at all" to "used all the time." At the end of the questionnaire, participants were given an opportunity to provide suggestions or comments. Results The mean ratings for the questions regarding participants' general attitude toward the course website are as follows with the scale ranging from "no, not at all" (0) to "yes, very much" (60): liked that the class had a course website (52.28), liked turning in assignments online (53.54), user friendly website (52.98), requirements for course assignments made clear (53.26), grading procedures for course assignments made clear (53.72), and goals of course made clear (53.32). Next, mean ratings were calculated for questions regarding how often the participants used certain tools of the course website. The scale ranged from "did not use at all" (0) to "used all the time" (60). The means were as follows: visited the course website (44.67), used the course website to check current grade in the course (45.84), looked at the sample test question (25.96), checked the syllabus on the course website (22.59), used the PowerPoint A presentation graphics program from Microsoft for Macintosh and Windows. It was the first desktop presentation program for the Mac and provides the ability to create output for overheads, handouts, speaker notes and film recorders. slides (38.00), used the calendar (28.46), and used the discussion area to read instructor's responses to application assignments (52.41). At the end of the questionnaire, participants were given an opportunity to provide suggestions and comments about the use of a course website. Their responses were: "I liked it and thought it was very useful and handy," "Website had a good format that was easily accessible," "I liked the website, it worked well," "It worked well," "I love website, make every teacher do it," "I thought it was a good thing," "I wish every class of mine would use this," "Keep continuing to post the current grades because it is nice and accessible," "I think the website is awesome!" "I think the course website helped me a lot," and "I thought the website was very easy, & I would much rather have all classes like it." Additional comments included: "Good website! Keep it up! I like being able to access all the stuff for this class in one place. I liked the calendar on there because it helped me keep track of assignments. Doing assignments online also was beneficial because you were able to respond back." Another student commented: "The website addition was great and easy. I liked being able to check my grade whenever I wanted. Turing 1. Turing - Alan Turing. 2. Turing - R.C. Holt <holt@csri.toronto.edu> & J.R. Cordy <cordy@cs.queensu.ca>, U Toronto, 1982. Descendant of Concurrent Euclid, an airtight super-Pascal. in assignments online in much better because it saves paper and time." Although not the focus of the current experiment, final course grades and performance on specific exams questions from this term using a course management system were compared to a previous term when a course management system was not used. This comparison was made because the data were easily available due to the fact that the instructor was the same for both terms. Specifically, final course grades and performance on specific exam questions were compared between term I of 2005 when a course website was utilized (67 students) and term I of 2004 when a course website was not utilized (76 students). Results indicated that students' final course grades from the term using a course management system (M = 80.06, SD = 11.53) were significantly lower than final course grades from the term not using a course management system (M = 85.76, SD = 8.60), t (141) = 3.37,p < .001. In addition, performance on specific exam questions from the term using a course management system (M = 74.23, SD = 16.75) were significantly lower than performance on specific exam questions from the term not using a course management system (M = 79.27, SD = 15.36), t (276) = 2.61,p < .01. Discussion Results from the current experiment were consistent with previous research findings (e.g., Couch, 1997; Goolkasian, Wallendael, & Gaultney, 2003; Warren & Holloman, 2005; Yip, 2004) documenting that students do indeed posses positive attitudes toward the use of certain tools of course management systems, specifically in this case a course website. These positive attitudes were demonstrated in students' responses to questions about their general attitudes toward the course website and how often they used certain tools available on the course website. In particular, the positive attitudes toward completing course assignments on-line were surprising. Additionally, students' comments on the free response questions were equally positive, with no negative comments being made. It is encouraging to see that the atmosphere of the university did not negatively influence the students' attitudes toward the use of a course website. Specifically, the university not offering a course management system and the students not having previous exposure to using such systems in the university classroom did not seem to negatively influence ratings. More than one student even commented that other professors should use (or even be forced to use) similar technology in their respective classes. Despite the fact that students liked that the course had a website, there is not overwhelming support that the use of the course website had a positive influence on student learning. The opposite seems to be the case with the use of a course website significantly decreasing final course grades and performance on specific exam questions. However, before one can conclude that the course website was the sole cause of the decrease in student learning and performance, other factors must be considered. First, for term I of 2005, there was a section of Introductory Psychology devoted strictly for honors students An honors student is a student in elementary, middle, or high school recognized for achieving high grades. Honors students are recognized on lists published periodically throughout the school year, known as "honor rolls". . Therefore, honors students who would have potentially been enrolled in the course (as was the case in term I of 2004) were not enrolled in the course. Thus, the students who typically performed the best during term I of 2004 were not the type of students included in the course during term I of 2005. Second, the amount of course material changed between the two years. For the 2005 year when the course website was used, more information was covered in the course (e.g., sensation and perception, language) that was not covered not covered Health care adjective Referring to a procedure, test or other health service to which a policy holder or insurance beneficiary is not entitled under the terms of the policy or payment system–eg, Medicare. Cf Covered. during the year of 2004. This increase in the amount of material the student was responsible for knowing could have caused the decrease in performance. Finally, the frequent use of the course website could have contributed to decrease in scores. Specifically, students who regularly checked their grades would have known the minimum scores needed to keep the final course grade they wanted. This would have been different from a previous term were such calculations were not possible, potentially causing students to try harder to ensure they earned the grade they wanted. Support for this idea comes from the fact that although the final course grades and performance on specific exam questions decreased significantly, the letter grade did not change. For example, the final course grade dropped from a 86% to a 80%, both of which are scores in the B range. Limitations of the current experiment include that fact that students who did not like the use of the course website may have withdrawn from the course early in the term, leaving only those students who had a positive attitude toward the use of a course management system left. However, the instructor did not notice that the rate of withdrawal was different from previous terms or from other sections of the course offered by different instructors not using a course website. Additionally, many factors (discussed previous) were not controlled for to be able to compare student learning and performance between the two years. Future research is needed to continue to investigate students' responses to the introduction of technology in the classroom and if positive responses to its use outweigh out·weigh tr.v. out·weighed, out·weigh·ing, out·weighs 1. To weigh more than. 2. To be more significant than; exceed in value or importance: The benefits outweigh the risks. the potential negative effects on learning. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jennifer Jennifer became a common first name for females in English-speaking countries during the 20th century. The name Jennifer is a Cornish variant of Guinevere, deriving ultimately from Proto-Celtic *windo-seibaro- "white ghost", via Brythonic *wino-hibirā (cf. M. Bonds-Raacke at jennifer.raacke@uncp.edu See .edu. (networking) edu - ("education") The top-level domain for educational establishments in the USA (and some other countries). E.g. "mit.edu". The UK equivalent is "ac.uk". . References Althaus, S. L. (1997). Computer-mediates communication in the university classroom: An experiment with on-line discussions. Communication Education, 46, 158-174. Bee, R. H., & Usip, E. E. (1998). Differing attitudes of economics students about web-based instruction. College Student Journal, 32 (2), 258-269. Buerck, J. P., Malmstrom, T., & Peppers, E. (2003). Learning environments and learning styles: Non-traditional students Non-traditional student is an American English term referring to students at higher education institutions (undergraduate college or university) who generally fall into two categories: Cao, L., & Bengu, G. (2000). Web-based agents for reengineering engineering education. Journal of Educational Computing computing - computer Research, 23 (4), 421-430. Couch, J. V. (1997). Using the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the in instruction: A homepage for statistics. Psychological Reports, 81, 999-1003. Goolkasian, P., Wallendael, L. V., & Gaultney, J. F. (2003). Evaluation of a website in cognitive science. Teaching of Psychology, 25, 266-269. Heffner, M., & Cohen, S. H. (2005). Evaluating student use of web-based course material. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 32 (1), 74-81. Henley, D. C. (2003). Use of a web-based formative assessment Formative assessment is a self-reflective process that intends to promote student attainment [1]. Cowie and Bell [2] define it as the bidirectional process between teacher and student to enhance, recognise and respond to the learning. to support student learning in a metabolism/nutrition unit. European Journal European Journal is a weekly Deutsche Welle (DW) news program produced in English. It is broadcast from Brussels, Belgium and primarily covers political and economic developments across the European Union and the rest of Europe, as well as issues of particular concern to of Dental Education, 7, 116-123. Liu, M., Papathanasiou, E., & Hao, Y.-W. (2001). Exploring the use of multimedia examination formats in undergraduate teaching: Results from the fielding testing. Computers in Human Behavior, 17, 225-248. MacFadden, R. J., Maiter, S., & Dumbrill, G. C. (2002). High tech and high touch: The human face of online education. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 20, 283-300. Olsen, F. (2001). Getting ready for a new generation of course management systems. Chronicle chronicle, official record of events, set down in order of occurrence, important to the people of a nation, state, or city. Almanacs, The Congressional Record in the United States, and the Annual Register in England are chronicles. of Higher Education higher education Study beyond the level of secondary education. Institutions of higher education include not only colleges and universities but also professional schools in such fields as law, theology, medicine, business, music, and art. , 48 (17), A25. Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from cyberspace Coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," it is a futuristic computer network that people use by plugging their minds into it! The term now refers to the Internet or to the online or digital world in general. See Internet and virtual reality. Contrast with meatspace. classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden : Jossey-Bass. Taylor, J. E. (2004). Teaching university students family caregiving online. Educational Gerontology gerontology: see geriatrics. , 30 (5), 423-431. Taylor, R. P., & Gitsaki, C. (2003). Teaching WELL in a computerless classroom. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 16 (4), 275-294. Warren, L. L., & Holloman, H. (2005). On-line instruction: Are the outcomes the same? Journal of Instructional Psychology, 32 (2), 148-151. Yip, M. (2004). Using WebCT to teach courses online. British Journal of Educational Technology, 25 (4), 497-501. Young, J. R. (2002). Pricing shifts by Blackboard (1) See Blackboard Learning System. (2) The traditional classroom presentation board that is written on with chalk and erased with a felt pad. Although originally black, "white" boards and colored chalks are also used. and WebCT cost some colleges much more. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48 (32), A35. (Footnotes) (1) Research has also been conducted to determine the effects of the use of course management systems on student learning and course outcomes. However, because this is not the primary focus of the current experiment, this literature will not be reviewed. (2) After all data was collected, the researcher used a ruler to determine the value of the X for each rating made by all participants ranging from 0 to 60. Jennifer M. Bonds-Raacke, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology and Counseling, University of North Carolina at Pembroke The University of North Carolina at Pembroke (known colloquially as UNC Pembroke or UNCP) is a public historically American Indian university in the town of Pembroke in Robeson County, North Carolina. . |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion