An Exploratory Study of the Online Learning Environment

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. Khanlarian ◽  
Rahul Singh

ABSTRACT Web-based homework (WBH) is an increasingly important phenomenon. There is little research about its character, the nature of its impact on student performance, and how that impact evolves over an academic term. The primary research questions addressed in this study are: What relevant factors in a WBH learning environment impact students' performance? And how does the impact of these factors change over the course of an academic term? This paper examines and identifies significant factors in a WBH learning environment and how they impact student performance. We studied over 300 students using WBH extensively for their coursework, throughout a semester in an undergraduate class at a large public university. In this paper, we present factors in the WBH learning environment that were found to have a significant impact on student performance during the course of a semester. In addition to individual and technological factors, this study presents findings that demonstrate that frustration with IT use is a component of the learning environment, and as a construct, has a larger impact than usefulness on student performance at the end of a course. Our results indicate that educators may benefit from training students and engaging them in utility of co-operative learning assignments to mitigate the level of frustration with the software in the WBH learning environment and improve student performance.

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim J Wilkinson ◽  
Anthony N Ali ◽  
Caroline J Bell ◽  
Frances A Carter ◽  
Chris M Frampton ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon D'Alfonso ◽  
Jessica Phillips ◽  
Lee Valentine ◽  
John Gleeson ◽  
Mario Alvarez-Jimenez

UNSTRUCTURED The modern omnipresence of social media and social networking sites (SNSs) brings with it a range of important research questions. One of these concerns the impact of SNS use on mental health and well-being, a question that has been pursued in depth by scholars in the psychological sciences and the field of human-computer interaction. Despite this attention, the design choices made in the development of SNSs and the notion of well-being employed to evaluate such systems require further scrutiny. In this viewpoint paper, we examine the strategic design choices made in our development of an enclosed SNS for young people experiencing mental ill-health in terms of ethical and persuasive design and in terms of how it fosters well-being. In doing so, we critique the understanding of well-being that is used in much of the existing literature to make claims about the impact of a given technology on well-being. We also demonstrate how the holistic concept of eudaimonic well-being and ethical design of SNSs can complement one another.


Indonesian internet users reached 143,26 Million in 2017, most of them used internet for accessing messaging and social media application. We argue that usage of messaging and social media can give positive impact to the learning process. Our research method using questionnaire to collect data, research conduct in Private University in Jakarta, and student as our research unit analysis. The second year’s research shows that optimization of social media application and messenger services to improve student performance can be done by knowing the most common social media application and messenger services that used by student, socialize the process to increase number of participation, utilization of features of the application, continuous improvement, and communication about method’s success story that can attracts lecturer and students to apply and keep improve the more effective method and learning process. This research result can be use by the lecturer or educator to improve education through social media application and messenger.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-280
Author(s):  
Bert Toussaint

In the past decades we witnessed a rise of public participation in transport and land-use projects, and often those practices have been formalised in a solid juridical framework. In the Netherlands and other EU-countries, the cornerstones of this participatory planning framework are the Environmental Impact Study and the Environment Impact Assessment. However, historical appraisals of the impact of these instruments on participatory processes are lacking. Using the case study of the contested Dutch motorway project passing through the Amelisweerd forest (1970s), this paper aims to appraise the role of deliberative democracy concepts and practices. This paper is a plea for a novel academic agenda driven by the research questions: to what extent have participatory processes in transport, land-use and water management policies had an impact on deliberative democracy concepts and practices? Which role did citizens and users have in shaping the decision-making process?


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuncay Bayrak ◽  
Bahadir Akcam

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on how web-based training and testing platforms provide opportunities for students to leverage the capabilities of various information and communication technologies to engage in self-directed learning. Design/methodology/approach The impact of an interactive learning environment on improving students’ essential skills was measured using a previously validated structured questionnaire, consisting of five subscales: content, accuracy, format, ease of use, and timeliness. Having analyzed the instrument, the authors decided to modify it to incorporate two more measures of overall reliability and satisfaction to capture students’ overall satisfaction level with the tool. Overall, 24 items are used to measure students’ perceptions of the tool content, accuracy, format, ease of use, timeliness, reliability and satisfaction. A five-point Likert-type scale was used in the questionnaire where 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree. Findings This study suggests that while students’ major, instructor, and course grade are important factors impacting student perception of the learning tool, year (freshman vs sophomore) and gender do not have any impact on the student perception. Course grade shows an interesting trend. Students who received an A and an F as their final grades are the most satisfied groups compared to other grade groups. This finding suggests a further study is needed to explore the impact of the course grade on the students’ satisfaction with the tool. While students liked simulations, grading feature with immediate feedback, electronic textbook and the system overall, they suggested improvements in the grading module, simulations, projects, system compatibility, system reliability, and cost. Originality/value Most studies use a survey to measure student’s satisfaction with a web-based learning platform. This study, however, made an attempt to understand students’ satisfaction with a web-based blended learning platform by analyzing their comments and feedback on the course using a text analytics tool.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Xin Gu ◽  
Sarah E. Pepin ◽  
Paul D. Berger

<em>The importance of education is acknowledged by modern society. As more and more people are willing to invest in education to improve students’ performance, the question of which areas of investment contribute most strongly to better academic performance arises. Parents can choose to involve their children in extracurricular activities, or they can choose to pay for additional classes outside of regular schooling. In addition, the use of technology, or, more specifically, access to the Internet at home, is becoming more and more common, and its influence on student performance is a popular topic of study. In this paper, we use two experiments to uncover the factors that influence students’ performance in Math and Portuguese Language and to support strategies for investment in education.</em>


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Rustique-Forrester

Recent studies have produced conflicting findings about whether test-based rewards and sanctions create incentives that improve student performance, or hurdles that increase dropout and pushout rates from schools. This article reports the findings from a study that examined the impact of England's accountability reforms and investigated whether the confluent pressures associated with increased testing, school ranking systems, and other sanctions contributed to higher levels of student exclusion (expulsion and suspension). The study found that England's high-stakes approach to accountability, combined with the dynamics of school choice and other curriculum and testing pressures led to a narrowing of the curriculum, the marginalization of low-performing students, and a climate perceived by teachers to be less tolerant of students with academic and behavioral difficulties. A comparison of higher- and lower-excluding schools, however, found that these effects were more pronounced in the higher-excluding schools, which lacked strong systems and internal structures for supporting staff communication, teacher collaboration, and students' individual needs. The study offers an international perspective on recent trends toward greater accountability in education, pointing to a complex inter-relationship between the pressures of national policies and the unintended consequences on schools' organizational and teachers' instructional capacities. The study's findings raise particular implications for the United States and show that in the design of accountability systems, attention must be paid to how the pressures from accountability will affect the capacity of schools and teachers to respond to students who are low-performing and struggling academically.


2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (33) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunxia Gao ◽  
Zaidatun Tasir ◽  
Jamalludin Harun ◽  
Nurul Farhana Jumaat

The aim of the research is to explore the impact of the web-based Leitner Box which is enhanced with social network, particularly Facebook on English vocabulary learning. This research used mixed research design and the data were collected both in qualitative and quantitative ways. The instruments include questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and performance tests. 35 university’s students were chosen randomly as the respondents for the questionnaire and 30 students from English class were chosen purposively to do the pre-test and post-test. From the findings, it is discovered that students agreed they have problems in learning vocabulary (mean = 3.98).   The web-based Leitner Box has a significant positive impact on English vocabulary learning (p<0.05). Findings from the questionnaires also revealed that students gave positive opinions toward web-based Leitner box (mean = 4.28).  In term of whether the element of social network can be beneficial to students, the findings showed that social network helps students to learn English vocabulary in this collaborative learning environment (mean = 4.28). The students claimed that web-based Leitner Box and social network make the vocabulary learning process much easier and more interesting by sharing information and actively participating in the collaborative learning environment.


Author(s):  
Hadley S Clayton ◽  
Mark G Smith

This paper reports the results of a study to assess the impact of MasteringChemistry® on student performance in chemistry. The proprietary MasteringChemistry® is a web-based tutoring application and assessment system currently used in first year chemistry modules at the University of South Africa (Unisa). This web-based programme provides supplementary work, giving students practice with instructor-assigned problems. The system is able to coach students with feedback specific to their needs and with simpler problems upon request. The application also provides the individual student with immediate and specific feedback on incorrect or partially incorrect answers. There is great potential for web-based learning in an open distance-learning environment. In particular, in subjects such as chemistry where problem-solving strategies are intrinsic to the learning process, the internet could be an effective medium for teaching and learning. The rationale for this study was to explore new teaching strategies to increase the pass rate in chemistry. A profile of the student demographic, with data gathered from registration records, is presented. Data collection on student assessment occurred through the instructor diagnostic tools in the MasteringChemistry® application or with the assistance of the Unisa Examination Administration. Here we present preliminary results that indicate that most students who regularly accessed the material achieved better examination results than those who did not. This pilot study has led to improved and innovative formative assessment practices by the academic staff in the Chemistry Department at Unisa. It further formed an interesting and challenging learning experience for staff investigating web-based approaches directed at improvement of their assessment activities. 


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