Using feedback to promote student participation in online learning programs: evidence from a quasi-experimental study

Educational technology research and development - How should learner analytics and different media be used to optimize feedback to increase students’ motivation and sense of learning...     

英语教学与学生课堂参与

英语教学应以学生为中心，学生参与是实现“以学生为中心”教学模式的重要前提条件。本文根据对学生英语课堂参与心理的调查情况，分析了学生不能积极参与课堂活动的主观原因和客观原因，提出了提高学生课堂“参与度”和“参与有效性”的相关问题和策略。     

试论农村中小学数字化学习中的学生评价

本文论述了数字化学习的学生评价的重要意义,进行评价的前提,提出了学生的主体性特征评价、学习过程性评价的主要方面,为正确进行评价提供了借鉴,为促进数字化学习深入开展提供了重要依据。     

Reining in student comments: a model for categorising and studying online student comments

A growing body of research has investigated the comments by students on websites that offer evaluations of college faculty. This corpus includes both quantitative and qualitative studies that each use a different scheme for classifying/analysing student comments, which makes the comparison of findings across studies impossible. The present study used a grounded theory method to develop a model for classifying the content of student comments on faculty rating sites that can be applied across studies. The multi‐dimensional nature of the model allows for the representation of the interconnected nature of the topics addressed by students in their comments and allows for comments to be categorised with varying degrees of specificity. Future research is needed to test the validity of the model for addressing various research questions.     

Academic literacies and e-learning: A critical approach to writing in the online university

This paper adopts an academic literacies perspective to argue for a critical approach to the writing practices of the online university classroom. It describes an on-going action research project in an online Masters in Online and Distance Education (MAODE) programme at the UK Open University, which aims to create an online writing resource to support distance learners in developing a critical awareness of the writing practices on the programme. The paper presents the results of an evaluation study of this resource during the 2005 presentation of the MAODE, and discusses the evidence from this study that such a resource can provide a space for students to critique the dominant literacies of the online university.     

Patterns of parental reaction to student grades

Factor analysis of questionnaire responses produced by over 6,000 individuals revealed parental reactions to good and bad grades grouped themselves into five categories: (1) Grades are important to me; bad ones lead to negative consequences; (2) Good grades are important to me, but I will support you regardless of grade; (3) Bad grades make me mad; (4) Do your best, but there is more to life than grades; and (5) Grades are important; you will know how I feel on the basis of a joking comment. When these patterns were related to reports of specific student actions in college, such as getting good grades, dropping a course, or cheating on an examination, results indicated only a few significant negative correlations, and only for students whose parents reacted to bad grades in a negative emotional way; i.e., in terms of categories 1 and 3. More benign reactions - categories 2, 4, and 5 - did not correlate either positively or negatively with student actions or grades. Results were taken to suggest that parental reactions to grades are not only attempts at changing student behavior but also may be viewed as emotional responses expressing personal needs and values.     

Emotional outcomes of e-learning adoption during compulsory online education

Education and Information Technologies - Information on the emotional outcomes of e-learning system use and emotional aspects of user experience in higher education is quite limited. Accordingly,...     

Assessing participation skills: online discussions with peers

Many tertiary-level courses assess students’ participation in tutorial or online discussions. However, in educational and pedagogical research literature, criteria for assessing students’ skills in engaging with peers remain unclear. This article describes an online assignment with a set of participation criteria and a method for assessing the quality of students’ interactions with peers. The assignment focuses on students’ ability to utilise their critical thinking skills while engaging with peers on a particular topic. This includes abilities such as responding to criticism, justifying one’s view and contributing to discussion. While the assignment is designed for a critical thinking course in a philosophy curriculum, the method and participation criteria may be adapted for assessment in other discipline areas.     

Widening participation and the media student experience

Despite an increase in higher education uptake in the UK, participation rates for working class students remain low. When working-class students attend university, they are often attracted to lower status universities to enrol in new subject areas, such as media studies. This study uses Bourdieu’s theory of stratification, and its reproduction via cultural and educational capital, to examine the experiences of a group of 55 media students using qualitative methods. The study finds that working class students often struggle to find their way to university, while middle-class ones may arrive through much easier routes. Working-class students are often circumscribed in their mobility by financial factors or caring roles. The students’ experiences of seminars can be alienating and difficult as the teaching may draw on implicit middle-class cultural capital with particular modes of address and verbal dexterity. The partnership model of teaching assumes a normative construction of a specific mode of studenthood and students may find themselves marginalised if they are not able to engage with this; the concept of independent learning may serve to aggravate this marginalisation. The students often receive strong support from families, particularly mothers, but may also experience distanciation between themselves and their friends from home. Middle-class students are able to project an assured career trajectory; working-class students are often ambitious but do not have access to the privileged cultural and social capital to realise their goals as effectively. Despite the relatively large numbers of students from working-class backgrounds, the institutional habitus of the university remains alien to some of its students.     

Do grades contaminate student evaluations of instruction?

The correlation between grades and student satisfaction has been interpreted as providing support for belief in a grading leniency bias hypothesis. That is, easy graders are assumed to receive better evaluations than hard gradersbecause they are easy graders. Howard and Maxwell have demonstrated that the relationship between grades and satisfaction might be viewed as an expected result of important causal relationships of other variables (student motivation and progress in the course) with satisfaction and grades, rather than simply evidence of contamination due to grading leniency. Eighty-three students in a research methodology course provided data at two points in a semester. Cross-lagged panel correlation analysis was employed to ascertain the direction of casuality in the relationship between student satisfaction and grades. The findings replicate the Howard and Maxwell path analytic results in finding no evidence that a grades-influencing-satisfaction interpretation is more likely than its opposite, namely, a satisfaction-causing-grades one. The weak relationship between grades and student satisfaction, and the study's inability to find evidence to impugn a satisfaction-causing-grades interpretation of that relationship, renders the grade contamination objection to student evaluations even less poignant.     

Extending participation in standard setting: an online judging proposal

In order for standard setting to retain public confidence, it will be argued there are two important requirements. One is that the judges’ allocation of students to performance bands would yield results broadly consistent with the expectation of the wider educational community. Secondly, in the absence of any change in educational performance, that the percentages in the corresponding bands should be stable over time. It is argued that the use of a small team of judges makes it more difficult to satisfy these conditions. However the cost and logistics of organizing a larger number of judges in the time-pressured atmosphere of public examining can lead to sub-optimal standard setting. Two parallel systems of awarding performance bands are empirically compared, one based on teams of six judges, the other based on a population of teachers. It is shown that the latter system gives more stable results over time for the same large student population. A proposal is outlined for extending participation in standard setting through the web-based presentation of materials and the capturing of cutscores from a population of teachers.     

Increasing student participation in the learning process

This paper is about increasing student participation in the teaching and learning process. It describes a methodology designed and implemented by the author for an Industrial Analysis unit in 1990–91 and emphasises the underlying educational philosophy. Industrial Analysis is a second year subject within the course Industrial and Business Systems, Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering in De Montfort University (former Leicester Polytechnic).The test of educational quality is assumed to be — What students are able to do on their own after exams. The programme aimed to train second year engineering undergraduates for industrial placement in the third year and, more generally, to bridge the gap between Institutes of Technology and industries.The subject — Industrial Analysis — is compared to the rest of the course — Industrial and Business Systems. The purpose is to assess how second year students perceive learning. With such knowledge a teaching approach could be devised to improve learning outcomes.The student-centred teaching approach is based on three pillars: explanation of theory, instruction on research methods, industrial applications. A total of 111 students form 25 teams and research 18 industries. The focus is on Research capability and Group interaction.Helpful guidelines emerge from student performance — how to avoid common pitfalls in research, such as unclear objectives, wide scope, vague approach, excessive data, superfluous technicalities and digressions. Advantages of early focusing are illustrated. Factor analysis is applied in order to find out how concepts are integrated by students.Sharing of experiences and team-working routines in class is used to bring down psychological barriers to learning. Individual and team levels of learning are examined through successive exposures and cycles.     

Learner satisfaction,engagement and performances in an online module: Implications for institutional e-learning policy

Education and Information Technologies - There has been debates related to online and blended learning from a perspective of learner experiences in terms of student satisfaction, engagement and...     

Predicting student success by modeling student interaction in asynchronous online courses

Early-warning intervention for students at risk of failing their online courses is increasingly important for higher education institutions. Students who show high levels of engagement appear less likely to be at risk of failing, and how engaged a student is in their online experience can be characterized as factors contributing to their social presence. Social presence begins with teacher-student and student-student interaction in online courses. Fortunately, student interaction data can be gleaned from learning management systems, used to model and predict at-risk students at an early stage. This research addresses an existing model for predicting at-risk students to test a previous hypothesis that a holiday effect is a contributor for failure. A new analysis then presents an alternative approach, one that tests the frequency of student interaction rather than amount of interaction as a preferable indicator.     

Building student trust in online learning environments

As online learning continues to gain widespread attention and thrive as a legitimate alternative to classroom instruction, educational institutions and online instructors face the challenge of building and sustaining student trust in online learning environments. The present study represents an attempt to address the challenge by identifying the social and technical factors that can likely induce or influence students’ perception about the trustworthiness of an online course and integrating the factors into a socio-technical framework that can be empirically validated. The methodology used and the data obtained from a university-wide survey conducted in an American university are reported in this article. Feedback from students with disabilities was further investigated, and the result has important implications for our understanding of disabled students’ acceptance for online learning.     

Higher education access and participation: political dependency and student choice

The two-fold purpose of this article is: (a) to review Australian trends concerning retention rates to the final year of high school, transition rates to higher education, and the phenomena underlying these rates including the impact of political intervention; and (b) to outline a pilot study conducted to identify and describe the dynamics of the decision process stages (DPS) through which high school students proceed in choosing to undertake university study and conjoint levels of (un)certainty. Factors underlying a current perception of crisis within Australian higher education are identified. Complex patterns of predictive associations among six general categories of predictors and the DPS, which operate differently during the various years of high school, are also examined. The relationship between the two is established with some suggestions for policy.     

Qualifying online teachers—Communicative skills and their impact on e-learning quality

Worldwide there is an increasing demand for educational institutions to offer part of their educations online and mixed mode. For institutions to comply with these demands, it is necessary to prepare teachers (and other members of the staff), to fulfil their responsibilities within the virtual environment. Teachers must be able to organize their courses pedagogically according to different conditions, i.e., subject domains, group sizes, variations within communication and interaction. Teachers must acquire knowledge and skills in handling Information and Communication Techniques (ICT) as well as pedagogical possibilities and constraints inherited in the software available. Several studies demonstrate that technical obstacles are easier to overcome than lack of communication skills. Also the consequenses of communication breakdowns tend to create serious problems that technology cannot solve. These problems concern how teachers function satisfactory as mediators and coaches in collaborative, knowledge sharing virtual environments. For example, how teachers support their students in becoming online-students and how they facilitate complex discussions on difficult topics. This is a big challenge for everybody involved in e-learning, and the challenge is not met by offering introductory courses for university teachers. Based on basis of a recent examination of concrete actions and strategies for the future within 11 Danish universities, the auther argues that there exists a severe mismatch between the organisational expectations and strategies and the competence-evolving activities that the same organisations offer to their staff. A recent case study of a university pedagogy course on e-learning for university teachers demonstrates and identifies some of the consequences of the mismatch. Finally the author suggests strategies to meet the demands of the future online university.