|
The treatment is a CD-based educational tool
for use in fundamental science and engineering
courses. Capable of being used with virtually
any quantitative course of study, it is intended
to help students learn the course material in
a more effective manner and to make the administration
and presentation of the course easier for the
instructor. The National Science Foundation sponsored
a program of testing and improving the software,
which was conducted over a three-year period in
engineering mechanics classes at University X
and University Y. The software was also modified
and implemented in a high school statistics course.
The objectives of the NSF study were to assess
and improve the effectiveness of the software,
particularly in the areas of implementation and
administration, student use, instructor use, and
subject matter modularity.
Implementation and Administration: The treatment
was implemented at a small technological university
(University Y), a large university (University
X), and in a high school setting. Students had
the option of using the software on an MS Windows®
network platform or on individual PCs using a
CD installation. This part of the software study
was quite successful with a large majority of
students as well as the participating instructors
indicating a high level of satisfaction with the
software's efficiency, navigational characteristics,
and ease of use. Corroboration and discussion
between University Y and the other participating
institutions produced a wide array of improvements
to the software throughout the course of the study.
Student Use: The treatment was tested on experimental
and control groups of students at Universities
X and Y. The approach for testing the treatment
was to have the same instructor teach one or more
experimental classes and one or more control classes.
Both the experimental and control classes had
identical formats except that the experimental
classes fully utilized the treatment for submission
of homework and the control classes followed a
traditional homework approach (i.e., submission
of problems on paper). Surveys and questionnaires
gauged the students' level of satisfaction each
semester. A statistical study at University Y
indicated that use of the treatment resulted in
some improvement in test scores for the study
population as a whole; however, statistically
significant improvement occurred for those students
in the middle GPA range. Approximately 70% of
the participating students indicated that they
would prefer using the treatment over the traditional
homework method.
Instructor Use: Six instructors (one primary
and one secondary at each institution) used the
software throughout the study. Input from each
of these participants resulted in significant
improvements to the software, particularly in
the area of tracking student progress.
Subject Matter Modularity: One of the goals of
the treatment was to be able to extract that portion
of the code pertaining to a particular subject
and efficiently replace it with material for another
subject. For the NSF study of the treatment, course
material for engineering mechanics was replaced
with that for high school statistics. The study
demonstrated that careful modular programming
can result in efficiently adapting educational
tools for differing subject areas.
The treatment performed well at the three institutions
where it was implemented. A large majority of
the students and all participating instructors
were pleased with its performance. The study indicated
that the major challenge for developers of educational
software is to effectively keep pace with changes
in both the publishing and the computer science
industries and to adapt the educational software
accordingly.
|
