Pei-Di Shen ¹, Tsang-Hsiung Lee ²and Chia-Wen Tsai <sup>1

1</sup>Ming Chuan University, Taiwan
²National Chengchi University, Taiwan

Contrary to conventional expectations, the reality of computing education in Taiwan’s vocational schools is not so practically oriented, and thus reveals much room for improvement. More, it is a big challenge for teachers to help college students, who are often addicted to the Internet, engage in an online course in an environment filled with millions of interesting websites, free online games, and online messenger. In order to develop vocational students’ practical skills of deploying application software through Internet, we conducted a quasi-experiment to examine the effects of applying web-based problem-based learning (PBL), web-based self-regulated learning (SRL), and their combination to enhance students’ computing skills in a short-term module of deploying Microsoft Word. Two classes of 106 first-year students were divided into 2 (PBL vs. non-PBL) × 2 (SRL vs. non-SRL) experimental groups. Results were generally positive. This research contributed to the existing literature by specifying how teachers can simulate the situation and climate and ask students to regulate their learning by applying PBL and SRL instructional methodologies in a web-based learning environment. Moreover, this study suggested that teachers could apply PBL and SRL simultaneously in the modules rather than singly to strengthen the interaction of PBL and SRL to promote students’ learning.

Providing online courses in an environment that is full of Internet addiction challenges both instructors and students. Without systematic redesign and reconsideration of the learning settings, teachers and students may suffer from ineffectiveness resulting from replicating traditional instructional methods through Internet. This study may provide valuable insights and shed light on leading practices of web-based pedagogies for those schools (particularly for vocational schools) and institutes that hold short-term modules or workshops, or for scholars and teachers planning to implement, or currently engaged in, e-learning.

Keywords: web-based PBL, web-based SRL, e-learning, vocational students, computing education, short-term module

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