A considerable amount of time is spent each semester by professors changing design and temporal elements of online courses to improve student satisfaction and performance (or is it just me?) In order to quantify what, if any difference these changes make to student outcomes, I am going to compare two versions of my PSY 101 online in Fall 2014. The content and requirements of the two courses is exactly the same. The differences between the two courses are strictly superficial (design elements, organization, structure, etc.) and unrelated to course content or student responsibility. If design matters (and I contend it does), this analysis should demonstrate a significant difference in student performance outcomes and/or satisfaction with the course. Semester and instructor are held constant to isolate the variables of interest.
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| 101-comparative-assessment-fall-2014.docx | 61.7 KB |
Comments
I am looking forward to seeing your results. I hope it goes well.
No, it isn't just you! We do something similar in RDG. Some online CRE 101 courses use three novels and different designs, and some use only two. As an instructor of online courses, I am very interested in your results.
Talk about closing the loop . . . by the way, there you go again with that "persistent dissatisfaction of the status quo" which is a cornerstone of CATS. Really looking forward to the results!
I cannot figure out where to "close the loop" temporarily- to update on my progress. For the CATS I ran last semester 3 data sets were created, necessary for comparison. Upon return from break I found that 2:3 datasets were erased irretrievably from the server, making analysis impossible. This (Spring 15) semester I do not have 2 classes with different designs so this one is on pause until I have two comproble classes to study.
dang... how frustrating. I really wanted to see what happened with this. I (personally) think clear design is really important, but ....I have no data