1. How Students Use Online Course Materials in an Economics Course: What they love, hate, and value. Byron Brown & Carl Liedholm Michigan State University April 11, 2003

2. 2 The Course Virtual EC 201, Five semesters starting in Fall 2000. Course elements/tools: –Textbook –Text slides –Streaming video w/ slides –Practice problem sets –Practice quizzes

3. 3 Data –Students –Work habits and help seeking –Using course materials Order Value of materials to learning

4. 4 Students Five semesters. N=190, response rate 40% Compared to face-to-face: –More seniors –Fewer freshmen 76% said course required 20% GPA between 3.5 and 4.0 87% GPS >2.5

5. 5 Work Habits Hours per week on course: –0 to 3 hours: 52% –4 or 5 hours: 37% –6 or 7 hours: 9% –8 or 9 hours: 1% –10 or more hours: 2% Compare to National Survey of Student Engagement: 63% spend less than 3.75 hr./wk.

6. 6 Work Habits (cont’d) BUT… The course was rated only slightly more challenging than average for MSU courses. 58% rated the intellectual challenge as very high (14%), or high (44%).

7. 7 Mean Order of Use (1=first, 2 = second…6=last) 1.Printed (lecture) PPT slides: 2.70 2.Practice problems (Excel):2.73 3.Read text: 3.42 4.On-line PPT slides: 3.49 5.View lectures: 3.71 6.Practice quiz: 4.00

8. 8 But the distribution of preferences for when to use materials is more important.  Preferences are extremely diverse.  Preferences for textbook use are unusual.  Except for the Review Quiz, every other tool has more than 10 percent of the class using it FIRST.

9. 9 Figure 1 Order of using course materials

10. 10 What did they value? [1=very much, 2=much,…5=very little.] 1)Practice quiz (1.83) 2)Practice problems (Excel) (2.18) 3)Lectures with slides (2.70) 4)On-line PPT slides (2.71) 5)Textbook (3.17)

11. 11 Figure 2 Value of course materials

12. 12 They generally liked the course  66% would take the on-line version if they had it to do over again. (Q17)  78% would take another on-line course. (Q26)  57% liked it more than F2F. (Q31)  78% thought web was used effectively (Q28) BUT…They didn’t think they learned quite as much (and they didn’t). (Q30)

13. 13 And finally… Generally speaking, for all your courses, (not just economics courses) which you you prefer? (Q18) Wholly on line course. (24 %) Partly traditional, partly on-line (50%) Traditional course (26%)