Brian R. Kovar And Stacy E. Kovar An Analysis of Project Type and Content on Student Satisfaction, Effort and Performance Brian R. Kovar And Stacy E. Kovar

Overview Motivating students to become engaged in the learning process is a frequent goal in required information systems and accounting information systems courses. One way to accomplish this is to encourage students to select topics to explore that interest them. Students chose among several different types of learning exercises in an information systems course. We examined… How are performance, ability, effort and satisfaction related to one another for these projects? How do performance, effort and satisfaction relate to whether the project was hands-on or written? How do performance, effort and satisfaction relate to the content/topic of the learning exercise?

The Exercises

Variables Performance – Grade on the exercise Effort – Self-reported time spent on the exercise Satisfaction – “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest score, how would you rate this activity in terms of value, amount you learned, and helping you to better understand the topic area?” Ability – Course grade First, correlated with the above variables Then, used a control variable

How are Key Study Variables Inter-related?

What are the key Correlates of Performance, Effort and Satisfaction? No prediction of the directions of causality What is the influence of project chosen when controlling for all other factors Difference from the correlations comes from the effect of controlling for other variables when estimating the effect of others.

What are Effort Levels for Different Types of Projects?

What are Satisfaction Levels for Different Types of Projects?

What are Performance Levels for Different Types of Projects?

What are Some Possible Interactions?

What are Some Possible Interactions?

What are Some Possible Interactions?

Conclusions Despite performing at about the same level, students like hands-on exercises better, and they require less effort. This may imply that hands-on exercises are easier for students. Thus, faculty need to provide more help and guidance with written work. Students find artificial intelligence and PowerPoint exercises to require the least effort and produce the highest satisfaction, even though these result in the lowest and highest grades respectively. Database exercises consistently are the most time consuming and least satisfying exercises. Thus, this topics may need a little extra ‘selling’.