Case Study: Redesign of an Online MIS Course to Include Multiple Learning Styles Gary Ury Northwest Missouri State University

Study Description  Management Information Systems course  IS level  Service course for all Business Majors  MIS survey course that includes database and spreadsheet projects  Previous study found a significant difference in final course grades between traditional classroom students and online students  Purpose: Redesign the online course to include delivery that would address multiple learning styles (audio, video, demos, etc.)

Study Design  Redesign content Summer 2005  Lectures recorded in small units  10 minutes used as a guideline  Tegrity (  Impatica (  Narrated and illustrated demonstrations of Microsoft Access and Excel labs  Written lecture notes, outlines, and chapter PowerPoint slides were included in units  Text: “Fundamental of Information Systems” by Stair and Reynolds

 Redesign group  113 classroom and 46 online students  Academic year  Previous study group  800 classroom and 219 online students  Academic years Student Demographics

 Average Credit Hours Completed  Online 114 hours  Traditional 108 hours  Equal academic ability  ACT (22 online, 23 traditional)  GPA (2.9 online, 3.0 traditional)

Final Course Grades Comparison Traditional classroom students scored significantly higher, 83%, compare to online students, 79%

Grade Comparison by Activity Online students scored lower on lab components

Comparison of Final Course Grades Before and After Redesign Traditional classroom students of both groups scored significantly higher when compared to online students

Conclusions  Students self-selected the online sections  Willing to accept lower grades?  Found online format more difficult?  Students could not transfer to class section  Students quit participating but didn’t drop the course  Completing require business core course?  Two major questions remain: 1. How can technical, hands-on labs, be designed to become more interactive and valuable to online students? 2. How to motivate online students to stay in the course and perform to the best of their abilities?