How Effective is Student-Centric Edutainment in Large Introductory IS Survey Courses? Sharen Bakke Cleveland State University Presented at the 24 th Annual Conference for IS Educators Pittsburgh, PA November, 2007

The situation … Large introductory IS undergraduate course 400 – 450 students per semester Met twice a week – 1¼ hours per session Mandatory for all majors in the College of Business Work in progress since Fall 2002

Formative assessment Giving students a choice Practice opportunities Active learning techniques Positive learning experience

Token Awards Gift TypeVariationOptionsPoints Due date extension Quiz/ Homework 1 – 5 days Erase a gradeRetake a quiz 4.5 Additional submission Submit 1 more homework.15

Prerequisite Exercises

Continuous Improvement TermEvent Spring 2001Electronic administration Fall 2001Getting started Spring 2002Student IDs tracked … Fall 2003Game Show Introduced Spring 2004 Treatment Period Fall 2004Prerequisites added Spring 2005SQL added Fall 2005More prerequisites added …… Spring 2007

Regression Discontinuity Model

Where: Y = Mean test score ß o = Y intercept for the regression line:the pretest scores ß 1 = slope of the pre treatment regression line ß 2 = difference in slope between the pre and post treatment regression lines ß 3 = difference in the mean scores for the two regression lines at x cutoff = 7 x cutoff = cutoff term value: = Term 7 x 1 = term x 2 = indicator variable for group assignment 0 if x 1 < x cutoff 1 if x 1 > x cutoff x 3 = indicator variable for discontinuity in regression line intercepts, i.e. treatment effect 0 if x 1 < x cutoff 1 if x 1 > x cutoff  = error term Y = ß o + ß 1 x 1 + ß 2 (x 1 – x cutoff )x 2 + ß 3 x 3 + 

The Hypothesis and Results H 1 : ß 3 = 0 H 1a : ß 3  0 Y = ß o + ß 1 x 1 + ß 2 (x 1 – x cutoff )x 2 + ß 3 x 3 + 

Student Comments ORION lets me do things when I want to – I like that I like the feedback ORION gives me – it helps me get my work done ORION keeps me focused and requires me to do the work the pop extra credit is nice - I used the points several times to buy gifts from the catalog the chatroom is a good way to get help from other students

Conclusions 1.Student-Centric edutainment is effective for large introductory survey courses 2.The prerequisite exercises help the students learn more difficult concepts. 3.The Regression Discontinuity technique is a good tool for measuring program efficacy.