New Psychology 201 Web Resources
Winter Quarter, 1999
Charles SlemOne section of Psychology 201 has been redesigned to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the large lecture hall, Business 213 (the "silo"). In addition to having text and lecture resources available on a Cal Poly server, as part of the multimedia integration of the course, text and lecture web resources have been integrated into the presentation format. The lecture outline on the web resources is the outline that is projected on the screen in lieu of the overhead transparencies.
Fall Quarter, 1998, ushered in the adoption of a new textbook. As a result, the entire textbook component of the web resources had to be reconstructed. However, not all chapters were available to student, and during Winter Quarter, 1999, additional material has been added to give complete text coverage for this course. For all intents and purposes, however, the basic framework of the course integration was complete.In order to establish a baseline for the new textbook, and perhaps future comparisons between the use of the web resources in the integrated Psy 201 versus Psy 202, a number of questions concerning the web resources were added to the end of the third midterm for the course. In addition to the convenience of having almost all students available for testing, the exam was selected because it represented a point in time when all the course requirements had been completed.
For a variety of reasons, including ethical issues around access and equity, the use of the web resources was voluntary for all students, i.e. they were not required to use the resources as a supplement for studying or exploring psychological topics in greater depth.
MethodFollowing the last question on the third exam test booklet, students were asked to evaluate the web resources. Ten questions were asked: (1) How much did you use the Web Resources ("A lot", "Some", "A Little", or "Not at All"); (2) Rate the usefulness of the Web Resources for the class ("Very Useful", "Somewhat Useful", or "Not at all Useful"); (3) "I believe that web resources like this would be useful for other Cal Poly courses I am taking; (4) Support of Cal Poly Plan funds to develop these kinds of resources; (5) Skipping lectures because web resources were available; (6) Skipping reading text chapters because web resources were available; (7) Class level; (8) Anticipated Grade; (9) Web Competency Rating; and (10) Problems/Comments/Suggestions. Test booklets were collected separately and responses were anonymous.
Results
Of the 195 exams returned, analyses were done on the 170 test booklets (88%) that contained responses.
Table 1 summarizes the reported frequency of use. Of the 170 students who filled out the questionnaire, 37.6% reported that they used the web resources "a lot". Only 6.5% reported not using the web resources at all.
Table 1
Frequency of UseNumber Percent "A lot" 64 37.7% "Some" 69 40.6% " A Little" 26 15.3% " Not at All" 11 06.5% Table 2 summarizes student ratings of the usefulness of the web resources. Almost 75% rated the web resources as very useful, and only 1.2% rated the web resources as not useful at all.
Table 2
Usefulness RatingsNumber Percent "Very Useful" 123 74.6% "Somewhat Useful" 40 24.3% " Not Useful" 2 01.2% When the analysis is limited to those students who used the web resources at least "a little", 99.4% rated the resources as very useful or somewhat useful. (See Table 3)
Table 3
Usefulness Ratings by Students
Who Used the Resources
at least "A Little"Number Percent "Very Useful" 122 76.7% "Somewhat Useful" 36 24.3% " Not Useful" 1 00.6% Frequency of use was related to usefulness ratings, r=.55, (p<.001). Students who used the resources were more likely to see it as useful.
Table 4 reveals that the course is primarily composed of Frosh, with approximately 50% of the class. Almost all those students are incoming Frosh. Use was not related to class level, r=.06.
Table 4
Class LevelNumber Percent 1 Qtr Frosh 11 06.5% Other Frosh 73 43.2% Soph 39 23.1% Junior 26 15.4% Senior 20 11.8%
By the final exam, few students saw themselves as complete novices (3%), and almost 87% of the students considered themselves as least competent. Competence was modestly related to both use of web resources, r=-.24, or perceived usefulness, r=-.21.Anticipated grade in the course was very weakly related to use of web resources, r=.20, and perceived usefulness of the web resources, r=.12.
Table 5
Web CompetenceNumber Percent Novice 5 02.9% 2 18 10.5% Competent 74 43.3% 4 43 25.1% Expert 32 18.1%
Almost everyone agreed or strongly agreed (Table Six) that the web resource model for this class would be useful in other classes (97%).
Table 6
Applicability of Web Resources to Other CoursesNumber Percent Strongly Agree 118 69.8% Agree 46 27.2% Disagree 4 02.4% Strongly Disagree 1 00.6% Although a great deal of lecture and text material was available to the students with these web resources, only 2.9% reported skipping lectures often because they knew the material was on web, and 7.7% skipped reading the text because they knew the material was on the web. Approximately a fifth of the students sometimes skipped the lecture and a third sometimes skipped the lecture.
Table 7
Skipped LectureNumber Percent Often 5 02.9% Sometimes 35 20.6% Rarely/Never 130 76.5%
Table 8
Skipped Text ChapterNumber Percent Often 13 07.7% Sometimes 56 33.1% Rarely/Never 100 59.2% In general, skipping the lecture and the text was modestly negatively correlated with anticipated grades, r= -.22 and r=.-18. Skipping lectures was not associated with use or usefulness of the web resources (r=.03, r=-.03). Skipping the text material was modestly associated with use, r=.14, but not usefulness, r=.06.
DiscussionThe ratings of use and usefulness of the course web resources are extremely high with 93% of the students making some use of the web resources and 75% rating them as "very useful". These use and usefulness ratings are higher than in Psy 202 where the course is not as integrated with the web resources. Since the use of the web resources was entirely voluntary in both courses, this high percentage of use suggests that course resources in this format are perceived as very helpful for students.
These findings give support to utility of having course resources on the web, and using this common platform to even integrate classroom presentations. As the saturation of computers in the home/dorm reaches that of television,
Students could see how the web resources developed for this class could easily be developed for other Cal Poly courses. A full 97% of the students indicated that these kinds of resources would be helpful in other courses. This is seen as an indicatation that the underlying model guiding the development of the web resources is robust and applicable to a number of academic disciplines.
While 3% of the students often skipped lectures and 8% often skipped text chapters because they knew the web resource material was available is reassuring. The web resources were not intended to encourage students from skipping lectures or the reading. Since there is no comparison groups, i.e. other courses that don’t have web resources, it is difficult to assess the extent to which the web resources lead to "sometimes skip", which was higher.
There are some notes of caution that require further evaluation. This is one of the few evaluations in the continuing program evaluation of the web resources where there was a modest relationship between use and web competency. Further analysis is warranted since the web resources were designed to be as easy to navigate for novices. It could be that this may not be a serious condition since so many students are using the web resources, but it does suggest that there may be a small group whose perceived web competence is a barrier to access to these resources.
Return Top