Students’ tool-use within a web enhanced course: Explanatory mechanisms of students’ tool-use pattern

The popularity of content management systems (CMSs) in today’s higher education is driven by the assumption that providing a rich toolset and leaving the use of this toolset under learner control will stimulate self-regulated and deeper learning. Current evidence on students’ tool-use within CMS supported courses however tackles this assumption and indicates that CMSs may empower students’ learning only under particular learner-related conditions. The current study addresses this concern and investigates how students’ tool-use within a CMS supported course can be explained in terms of (a) students’ conceptions on the tool functionalities, (b) self-efficacy beliefs for self-regulated learning and (c) goal orientation. Data were collected within a first year undergraduate course ‘Learning and Instruction’. Students’ (n = 182) tool-use within the course was logged throughout the course episode and the influencing variables were measured through questionnaires. K-means cluster analyses revealed four clusters that reflected differences in students’ tool-choice and tool-use throughout the course. Multinominal regression analyses revealed that these tool-use differences could be explained in terms of students’ goal orientation. The study provides thus perspectives in order to capture students’ academic motivation through unobtrusive, behavioral, measures. Furthermore, questions are raised regarding the parallel between students’ tool-use pattern and study strategy use.     

Content Management Systems: Enriched learning opportunities for all?

This article examines the popular claim of Content Management Systems (CMSs) that providing a rich toolset and leaving the use under learner control is beneficial to learning. By means of a literature review, the current contribution examines whether all students are capable of using CMS tools so that their learning is enhanced. In contrast to what is assumed, the study conceptualizes tool use as a complex self-regulation strategy that cannot be taken for granted. Specifically, the article reviews empirical studies in relation to three topics: (a) personal agency in tool use, (b) performance effects of tool use and (c) influencing tool use variables. Findings reveal that not every student profited from the CMS learning opportunities; in multiple studies students differed in their tool use, and these differences had significant performance effects. Hence, these findings suggest that the pedagogical claim CMSs make is problematic. Besides this accumulated corpus of knowledge, the review revealed serious limitations in the retrieved studies which could hamper our findings. As a consequence, the review establishes a need for further research into students’ CMS tool use from an instructional design perspective. In addition to the theoretical framework, several directions for future research are given.     

Analysis of learners' navigational behaviour and their learning styles in an online course

Providing adaptive features and personalized support by considering students' learning styles in computer‐assisted learning systems has high potential in making learning easier for students in terms of reducing their efforts or increasing their performance. In this study, the navigational behaviour of students in an online course within a learning management system was investigated, looking at how students with different learning styles prefer to use and learn in such a course. As a result, several differences in the students' navigation patterns were identified. These findings have several implications for improving adaptivity. First, they showed that students with different learning styles use different strategies to learn and navigate through the course, which can be seen as another argument for providing adaptivity. Second, the findings provided information for extending the adaptive functionality in typical learning management systems. Third, the information about differences in navigational behaviour can contribute towards automatic detection of learning styles, helping in making student modeling approaches more accurate.     

In-class laptop use and its effects on student learning

Recently, a debate has begun over whether in-class laptops aid or hinder learning. While some research demonstrates that laptops can be an important learning tool, anecdotal evidence suggests more and more faculty are banning laptops from their classrooms because of perceptions that they distract students and detract from learning. The current research examines the nature of in-class laptop use in a large lecture course and how that use is related to student learning. Students completed weekly surveys of attendance, laptop use, and aspects of the classroom environment. Results showed that students who used laptops in class spent considerable time multitasking and that the laptop use posed a significant distraction to both users and fellow students. Most importantly, the level of laptop use was negatively related to several measures of student learning, including self-reported understanding of course material and overall course performance. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The impact of general and specific performance and self-efficacy on learning with computer-based concept mapping

When students learn a new and challenging task, for which they have very limited corresponding personal or vicarious experiences to refer, it is important to understand how their self-efficacy beliefs evolve during the course of sequential lessons; how they differ in the way their general learning performance and self-efficacy influence their ratings of task-specific self-efficacy and performance; and, how such differences may result in different learning outcomes and motivations for learning. By examining a group of 66 students engaged in learning to construct good concept maps with computer software, this study revealed several important findings on these questions. Students generally tended to initially overestimate their ability to successfully carry out the required task. They also varied in the way their general self-efficacy and performance were associated with their task-specific self-efficacy and performance. And, these differences did appear to be associated with different learning outcomes and motivations for learning. These results indicate that investigating individual differences in students’ patterns of association between general and specific performance and their self-efficacy may lead to a better understanding of how students differ in their levels of motivation and outcomes when learning a new and challenging task.     

Creative use of podcasting in higher education and its effect on competitive agency

This paper describes an academic experience of podcasting, which involved a group of students of a course on multimedia communication and human–computer interaction. These students acted both as users of the university’s podcasting service, and as creators of podcasted lessons. A comprehensive analysis based on the evaluation of the effects on student performance, on data from student satisfaction surveys, from interviews and from instructors’ observations provided encouraging results: Full-time students co-involved in lessons’ podcasting outperformed colleagues of the previous years and achieved higher levels of what we define as competitive agency, that led them to better understand the theoretical issues of the course and to more effective practical skills.     

Collaborative learning as a collective competence when students use the potential of meaning in asynchronous dialogues

The aim of this study is to examine and to describe how student teachers engaged in courses in web-based learning environments over a period of 40-weeks develop a collective competence to collaborate. The collective competence of collaboration is defined as the level of learning ability a group of students express when using dialogues as a tool for their own and other’s learning in a web-based learning environment. The students’ contributions to the course assignments, the group responses and the collaborative discussions and dialogues were analysed and interpreted based on Bakhtin’s and Rommetveit’s theories on dialogic interactions and meaning potentials. The results describe three different levels at which students use dialogues as a tool for learning when they collaborate within the group.     

Studying online: evaluation of an online study environment

This study evaluates student use of an online study environment. Its purposes were to (1) determine if college students will voluntarily use online study tools, (2) identify characteristics of users and nonusers of the tools, and (3) determine if the use of online study tools relates to course achievement. Approximately 25% of students used the online tools for more than one hour before each of three examinations. In comparing use of the study tools provided, the largest number of students made use of the online lecture notes and the greatest amount of online study time was devoted to reviewing multiple choice questions. The perceived ease of access to the Internet differentiated tool users from nonusers. Study tool users scored higher on course examinations after accounting for measures of ability and study skill.     

Voluntary use of online lecture notes: correlates of note use and note use as an alternative to class attendance

Note taking and note reviewing are essential college student learning activities. A large number of carefully controlled studies have evaluated student effectiveness in implementing each of these skills and have found that both can be improved by providing instructor notes. While the Internet now offers a practical method for providing notes, some instructors are reluctant to offer notes because they fear that students will use these notes as an alternative to class attendance. This study used data collected by the server and questionnaires to describe voluntary use of online lecture notes, to search for correlates of individual patterns of note use, and to investigate student use of notes as an alternative to class attendance. Students primarily printed notes and used these notes during class presentations. There was some evidence that note users performed better on examinations than students who did not use notes. Some students did admit to using notes as an alternative to class attendance, but a comparison between the examination scores of those who admitted to this practice and those who claimed never to use notes for this purpose showed no significant differences in performance.     

A case study-based investigation of students’ experiences with social software tools

The term “social software” covers a range of tools which allow users to interact and share data with other users, primarily via the web. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networking websites are some of the tools that are being used in educational, social and business contexts. We have examined the use of social software in the UK further and higher education to collect evidence of the effective use of social software in student learning and engagement. We applied case study methodology involving educators and students from 26 initiatives. In this paper, we focus on the student experience: educational goals of using social software; benefits to the students; and the challenges they experience. Our investigations have shown that social software supports a variety of ways of learning: sharing of resources; collaborative learning; problem-based and inquiry-based learning; and reflective learning. Students gain transferable skills of team working, negotiation, communication and managing digital identities. Although these tools enhance a student's sense of community, the need to share and collaborate brings in additional responsibility and workload, which some students find inflexible and “forced”. Our findings show that students have concerns about usability, privacy and the public nature of social software tools for academic activities.     

Uses of a private “virtual margin” on public threaded discussions: An exploratory lab-based study

Threaded discussion environments are commonly used to support educational dialogue; however their interfaces do not directly support the private work that students do to interpret and prepare responses to public postings. We examine the use of a private “virtual margin” added to an existing threaded discussion environment via a proxy server architecture. This margin area provided users with their own private writing space adjacent to the public space, allowing persistent annotations both on individual posts and indexes to posts. Unprompted uses of the system were examined in an exploratory lab-based study. Four graduate students completed an assignment designed to be authentic to typical course work, in which they reviewed a set of posts made by other students and developed at least one new post that would contribute to the group’s understanding of the course material. We discuss the unprompted uses made of the virtual margin during participants’ completion of this task, and discuss what these uses suggest about the potential for private marginalia to contribute to students’ learning via public threaded discussions.     

Predictors of creative computing participation and profiles of experience in two Silicon Valley middle schools

Examination of the “digital divide” has increasingly gone beyond the study of differences in physical access to computers to focus on individuals’ use of technological tools for empowered and generative uses. In this research study, we investigated the relationship between access to tools and experience with creative production activities. Our participants included 160 8th grade learners from two public middle schools. The local communities represented by the two schools differed in parent education levels, proportion of recent immigrants, and average family income. Findings indicated substantial variability in students’ history of creative production experiences within both communities. Three sets of analyses were completed. First, the two school populations were compared with respect to average levels of student creative production experience, access to tools at home, use of learning resources, frequency of technology use, and access to computing outside of their home. Second, correlates of variability in individuals’ breadth of experience with creative production activities were explored across both schools through a regression analysis. The resulting model indicated that students’ experience was best predicted by the number of technology tools available at home, number of learning resources used, frequency of computer use at home, and non-home access network size. In a third analysis, profiles of experience were created based on both breadth and depth of experience; the resulting four groups of students were compared. More experienced students utilized a broader range of learning resources, had access to more tools at home, taught a wider range of people, and were more confident in their computing skills. The groups did not differ in their self-reports of interest in learning more about technology.     

Digital divides? Student and staff perceptions of information and communication technologies

This paper reports qualitative findings from a study that investigated Australian university staff and students’ perceptions and use of current and emerging technologies both in their daily lives and in teaching and learning contexts. Forty-six first-year students and 31 teaching and support staff from three Australian universities took part in interviews and focus groups. This paper examines how students and staff reported on their use of new technologies in their daily lives, their stated reasons for using those technologies, and their beliefs about the benefits and limitations of using technologies as teaching and learning tools. The findings question assumptions that have been made about a “digital divide” between “digital native” students and their “digital immigrant” teachers in higher education today, suggesting we need to develop a more sophisticated understanding about the role technologies play in the lives of both students and staff. A better understanding of student and staff perspectives will allow for more informed decisions about the implementation of educational technologies in today’s higher education institutions.     

Online lecture accessibility and its influence on performance in skills-based courses

At the University of Toronto at Scarborough, we provide enhanced flexibility to our students using a blended-learning approach (i.e., the webOption) whereby students can attend lectures live, watch them online at their convenience, or both. The current research examines the use of pause and seeks features afforded by the webOption interface and how these features are related to students’ learning approaches and their performance in calculus courses. These courses emphasize the teaching of mathematical proofs; cognitive skills that are enhanced with practice (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977). Access to online lectures allows students to re-experience the professor as they teach these skills. Given this, it was predicted that use of the webOption might be especially potent in these learning contexts. The results we report here do not confirm that prediction. Students do use and appreciate the features of the webOption, however, those students who augmented their class attendance with online viewing, and those who used the lecture-control features the most, were actually the students who performed most poorly. We interpreted the results to be due to different learning strategies and the manner in which these strategies interact with course content. Our results suggest that using the pause feature is related to a surface strategy of learning, which is in turn related to poorer performance in the course.     

Effects of the heterogeneity of game complexity and user population in learning performance of business simulation games

Previous studies on business simulation games (BSGs) have concluded that improved performance may not be the primary benefit of using BSGs, due to mixed results between student performance and perceptions. Two relevant and insightful issues attract our attention, namely, the impacts of the heterogeneous student population and the different complexity levels of BSG software. To address these issues, the present study aims to understand the relationship between student profile/characteristics and performance in the classroom with BSG-facilitated learning. An in-depth case study is conducted on a general college course designed to teach three different complexities of BSGs to students enrolled in different majors. Four student profile factors are individually tested for differences in performance scores as evaluated by the teacher. Additionally, the influences of 11 student characteristics are assessed with regard their self-reported perceived learning performances. Regression analysis and ANOVA are used to investigate the impacts of heterogeneous users and game complexity on student performance. Based on the regression analyses of the data collected from 43 respondents who participated in the general course, the study concludes that knowledge and skill may influence the heterogeneous student population; moreover, student participation and tacit learning preference improve performance, and students with an auditory learning preference or high learning motivation may not perform well in classroom BSG learning. However, the low value of adjusted R square implies that more dimensions or variables are needed to increase the explaining power of the performance scores in the regression analyses. In contrast, heterogeneous BSG software with different complexity levels present different results. The current research contributes practical and incremental knowledge on the complexity of heterogeneous BSG software on performance scores and the perceived learning performance of heterogeneous student populations. With the research limitations acknowledged, a series of suggestions for teachers pertaining to appropriate applications of BSGs in classes is offered as well as recommendations to BSG providers. Nevertheless, in-depth analyses are required, preferably with larger student population samples, to further explore the insignificant relationship between student perceptions and attitude under nonlinear extended complexity.     

Who assigns the most ICT activities? Examining the relationship between teacher and student usage

The expansion of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in schools is expected to promote learning. To what extent teachers are utilizing the new ICT tools to engage students in learning activities remains a question. This study reports what kind of activities teachers are likely to assign students, and what type of teachers are more likely to assign such activities. Teacher ICT usage and student ICT assignments are examined using a sample of 3729 elementary and junior high school teachers in Taiwan. The results from correlation and regression analysis indicate that teachers who infrequently use basic ICT tools such as word processing rarely assign student ICT activities. At the other end of spectrum, teachers who create complicated multimedia materials are most likely to assign student multimedia activities. Regression results show that teachers’ frequency of building websites is the best predictor for assigning ICT-based sharing activities to students, though the likelihood is greater for junior high school than elementary school teachers. The results suggest that teachers assign students activities which require a variety of ICT tools, and teachers’ own ICT practices influence the type of ICT activities they assign to students.     

Collaborative argumentation and justifications: A statistical discourse analysis of online discussions

As justifications (such as evidence or explanations) are central to productive argumentation, this study examines how the discourse moves of students engaged in collaborative learning are related to their justifications during computer mediated communication (CMC). Twenty-four students posted 131 messages on Knowledge Forum, an online collaborative learning environment. These messages were coded and analyzed with a multiple outcome, multilevel logit, vector autoregression. When students disagreed or made claims, they were more likely to use evidence. After a student made an alternative claim, the next student posting a message was less likely to use evidence. When students made claims, disagreed, disagreed with other’s justifications, or read more messages, they were more likely to use explanations. Boys were more likely than girls to make new claims. Together, these results suggest that discourse moves and sequences are linked to justifications on online forums.     

Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies

This study investigated the extent and nature of university students’ use of digital technologies for learning and socialising. The findings show that students use a limited range of mainly established technologies. Use of collaborative knowledge creation tools, virtual worlds, and social networking sites was low. ‘Digital natives’ and students of a technical discipline (Engineering) used more technology tools when compared to ‘digital immigrants’ and students of a non-technical discipline (Social Work). This relationship may be mediated by the finding that Engineering courses required more intensive and extensive access to technology than Social Work courses. However, the use of technology between these groups is only quantitatively rather than qualitatively different. The study did not find evidence to support popular claims that young people adopt radically different learning styles. Their attitudes to learning appear to be influenced by lecturers’ teaching approaches. Students appear to conform to traditional pedagogies, albeit with minor uses of tools delivering content. The outcomes suggest that although the calls for transformations in education may be legitimate it would be misleading to ground the arguments for such change in students’ shifting patterns of learning and technology use.     

Attitudes towards the use of information and communication technology in management education

Information and communication technology (ICT) tools are being increasingly used to facilitate teaching in educational institutions. This study examined the attitudes of students and instructors towards using ICT tools in management education. Immediately after conducting workshops that introduced 11 ICT tools used in classroom settings, questionnaires were administered to students and instructors from three public universities in Taiwan. Responses of 242 students and 46 instructors regarding 5 domains of ICT tools – feedback, classroom mobility, publishing, collaboration, and social media – were analysed to investigate their attitude towards the use of ICT. The results revealed that students perceived the ICT tools of collaboration and social media to be helpful in learning and in increasing their future employment; in addition, the teachers found these ICT tools to be useful. Therefore, by integrating collaboration and social media in teaching and course design, teachers can enhance student participation and link students’ learning to their future employment.