Welcome to My Blog: Non-Comparative Evaluation Study

Welcome to My Blog: Non-Comparative Evaluation Study

Welcome to My Blog: Comparative study

Welcome to My Blog: Comparative study

Comparative study

Title:

Comparing Student Learning and Attitudes

Type of study:

Perception and Performance study.

Author:

Renee Smith and Linda Palm

Purpose:

This study compared students in traditional and distance sections of PHIL 101: Introduction to Philosophy in terms of both objective learning outcomes and student attitudes in the form of students' anticipated and perceived learning and course satisfaction.

The Audience:

141 students who enrolled in Introduction to Philosophy during the fall semester of 2005 or the spring semester of 2006 at Coastal Carolina University.

The technology used:

Traditional format VS distance format (WebCT)

Instrument:

Survey

Conclusion:

The results of the study indicated that the traditional and distance students did not differ significantly in their in performance on graded assignments, their expectations for learning at the start of the course, their perception of what they had learned at the end of the course, and their willingness to take another philosophy course.

Distance students anticipated enjoying specific course activities more than traditional students, but at the end of the semester, reported enjoyment of these activities did not differ.

Students in the traditional classes, however, rated the lectures as more interesting and rated the course, overall, as more enjoyable than students in the distance classes. The implications of these findings for philosophy instructors considering the use of the distance format are discussed.

Reference:

Smith and Palm. (2010). Comparing Student Learning and Atittudes. 13th january.

Non-Comparative Evaluation Study

Title:

Comparing the Impact of Two Different Designs for Online Discussion

Author:

Yuankun Yao

The purpose:

This study compared two ways of designing the discussion forums in an online class for teacher candidates. The purpose was to find out if requiring students to respond to one another with little intervention from the instructor would lead to increased student participation and more significant student learning, as compared to a design that required students to directly respond to the original discussion topic followed by an instructor response.

The audience:

Students of University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg located 35 miles from suburban Kansas City in USA.

The technology used:

Online Discussion

Instrument:

Observation

This major:

1) The number of times the students and the instructor visited each discussion forum

2) The number of times posted a message in a discussion forum

3) The number of words for each posted message.

Conclusion:

This study examined the impact of two different designs of online discussion on student participation in the discussions and the type of learning that was generated.

The results showed that when students were given an opportunity to respond to each other with the instructor mostly absent in the discussion process until the end of the discussions, they would visit the discussion forums more frequently. They were also more likely to pose follow-up questions for their classmates and engage in meaningful inquires. On the other hand, when the instructor posted frequently in the discussion forums, students would respond to him instead of their peers, and the discussions were seldom carried forth in much depth.

Reference:

Yao, Yuankun.Comparing the Impact of Two Different Designs for Online Discussion.

Descrption:

Stanford University is educating leaders to prepare them for the complexities they will face as they take up their roles in society. New initiatives aimed at improving K-12 education, enhancing the arts and creativity, reinventing graduate education, and extending the renaissance in undergraduate education reflect our commitment to building the extraordinary talent needed to address the challenges and exploit the opportunities of the new century.

Stanford University:http://www.stanford.edu/

The Stanford Challenge:http://stanfordchallenge.stanford.edu/

Stanford University Channel on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/stanford

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Athabasca University

Athabasca University, Canada’s Open University, is dedicated to the removal of barriers that restrict access to and success in university-level study and to increasing equality of educational opportunity for adult learners worldwide.
There approach to post-secondary education is based on four key principles: excellence, openness, flexibility and innovation.

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