1.
Introduction
Our study
investigates how students and their teacher experienced an online
course. We were interested to learn whether both parties perceived
similar advantages and disadvantages in online learning.
An online course at Jönköping International
Business School (JIBS) has been scrutinized from two perspectives. The
course chosen for investigation was Business English Online (BUENGON
1), which was running for the second time since autumn 2001. The
platform used was the school’s intranet called JIBSNet, developed to
handle administration of all the courses, and to provide some
facilities for communication between teachers and students. Students
chose the business English online course because no meetings were
arranged. The intranet served as the meeting place, and tasks were
uploaded at regular intervals.
The surge in e-business and e-Learning requires new
thinking about how we acquire knowledge and skills to meet the
knowledge economy. This places a demand on higher education and
corporations to equip knowledge workers with lifelong learning skills.
Key skills, such as communication, numeracy, the use of information
technology and learning how to learn, according to the recommendations
set by the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE,
Recommendations 17 and 21) are necessary in order to foster
flexibility, initiative, creativity, problem solving and openness to
change. The use of communication and information technologies (C&IT)
is being used to meet this challenge (Maier & Warren, 2001).
Since the Internet is largely a text-based medium,
and that written communication in e-commerce can make the competitive
difference in organizational success (Booher, 2001), the focus of the
business English online course was on developing students’ writing
skills.
JIBSNet at present does not support any other forms
of interaction other than offer a place for reading course-related
materials and uploading text. Therefore, an overarching aim was to
develop students’
electronic literacies (Warschauer, 2000).
2.
Method
One student who had enrolled on the course, offered
to provide the student perspective. The opportunity also served to
gather material for his master’s thesis. This student’s supervisor was
one of the authors of this paper; his online teacher was the other.
The supervisor gave advice on how to perform the pre-course online
questionnaire, where the aim was to determine all the students’
attitude to distance learning. One reason for not using interviews was
partly because it was an easy way of reaching the students as they
used IT as a tool during the course. Another reason was that not all
the students lived in the vicinity. After the course, it was of
relevance to conduct a follow-up questionnaire to find out why half
the students enrolled, had dropped out. In parallel, and independently
of one another, the teacher evaluated the course from her perspective.
3.
Results
The number of places available on the BUENGON
course is twenty, but only nineteen started. The pre-course
questionnaire asked students about their home/work life, any previous
experience of distance learning and their level of computer skills.
Most of the students lived locally, whilst others were working abroad;
they chose the course to complement their work, and a third had prior
experience of distance study.
3.1
Student Perspective
The follow-up questionnaire asked for learners’
perceptions of the course and whether the medium suited them. Students
thought that the delivery of the course enabled flexibility. In fact
all the students that passed the course, found that the design of the
course made it more flexible (Totally agree = 9, Agree in a great
extent = 1).
Those who successfully completed the course had
good computer skills and were even more positive to new technology. Of
the nineteen students who started the course, only ten of them
finished. The nine students who dropped out gave the following
reasons, as shown in Table 1
Table 1: Give
reason(s) why you left the course. (Question 6)
|
Reasons |
Frequency |
|
I got more work in my ordinary job.
|
1 |
|
I wanted to work with the English course
during the evenings but found it was not possible because of the
many group works. |
1 |
|
The design of the course didn’t suit me.
|
3 |
|
I realized that distance learning was not for
me. |
3 |
|
I felt that I didn’t manage to study by
distance. Didn’t get anything, but thought everything was a
mess, and besides I felt that I didn’t get enough time
|
1 |
|
Total |
9 |
They also found that JIBSNet was a good platform
for interaction between students and tutor. To the question “Do you
think the web platform (JIBSNet) has contributed to enhancing the
course pedagogically? 4 students answered “Yes” and 5 answered, “To a
certain extent”.
The majority of the students found that the
delivery was not appropriate for them. Conversely, it could be said
that the student does not suit the course, or more generally: some
students do not suit these types of courses. Of course the question
then is raised about different learning styles (see Table 2).
Table 2: Which of the
following learning styles describes you? (Question 11)
|
Learning
styles |
Disagree |
Agree partly |
Agree |
Agree
very much |
Agree fully |
Total |
|
Visual, learn new information through text
and picture. |
0 |
0 |
2 |
5 |
2 |
9 |
|
Auditory, learn through listening and
speaking. |
0 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
9 |
|
Logical, learn information through experiment
and pattern. |
0 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
9 |
|
Spatial, learn new information through
painting and creating. |
3 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
9 |
|
Kinaesthetic, learning new information
through the body. |
5 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
9 |
|
Group, take in new information through
working in a group, comparing and relating to other people’s
experience |
0 |
2 |
4 |
2 |
1 |
9 |
|
Individual, take in new information through
one’s own work and by following one’s own feelings |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
6 |
9 |
As can be seen from Table 2, in the column Agree
very much, a learning style that incorporates visual aspects seems to
be most appropriate when reading an online course, at least as far as
our study indicates (five students). Also logical attributes turn out
to be important (four students).
Most important for these students was being able to
work and learn individually. This could largely account for why these
students left the course as they may have felt thwarted by all the
group work tasks.
Of the remaining ten who completed the course,
students benefited from the flexibility of the delivery and considered
the platform a useful place to house all course matters. They also
appreciated communicating via the discussion forum (see Table 3).
Table 3: Statements
regarding the course (Question 12)
|
General
statements about the course |
Disagree |
Agree partly |
Agree |
Agree very
much |
Agree fully |
Total |
|
Course design has enabled flexibility in my
studies, both geographically and in time |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
10 |
|
Platform has improved communications with
other students |
1 |
0 |
5 |
2 |
2 |
10 |
|
Platform has improved communications with
tutor |
1 |
1 |
6 |
1 |
1 |
10 |
|
Has been easy to use and understand. |
0 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
6 |
10 |
|
Tasks have been easy to understand and follow |
0 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
10 |
The major problem they had were difficulties in
understanding the written instructions to the set assignments, which
they considered unclear, and confusing. The group work tasks also proved
to be a bone of contention.
Some students would have preferred to work on their
own because few were willing to take the initiative in forming and
maintaining contact with their groups. A face-to-face meeting would have
been welcome to create a learning community.
3.2
Teacher perspective
The frustration and stress related to delivering the
first two offerings of the BUENGON courses were a result from lack of
time and lack of coordination between the various administration bodies.
The overall look and feel of the interface was dull and static. The
tutor uploaded material, which the students downloaded. Lesson plans
were being written and then revised as the course progressed; therefore
it was not possible to give students advance notice of the
assignments.
Another difficulty and source of bafflement was
students’ responses, or lack of them. Students seemingly did not
understand instructions; they wanted to seek personal clarification with
the tutor; they had problems communicating with their group. However,
the small changes in presentation of material, which in essence remained
the same, changed its focus on what the tutor was preparing to what the
student needed to know to be able to do the tasks. Once the materials
had been written, and the design of the course put up on JIBSNet, it was
possible to focus on the communication and interaction between the
learners and tutor.
The activities for assessment were group-based with
some assignments which could be performed individually. This was to
allow for different learning preferences. The discussion forum primarily
was to nurture an online community, with a secondary function of
providing the tutor with evidence of student activity.
Students’ emails to the tutor seeking clarification
to certain tasks provided valuable feedback on how well the course
content was presented. Problems perceived concerned the structure and
schedule. Confusion was caused by the heading descriptors in the menu on
the webpage, which used the week numbers. Students were uncertain about
the deadlines. Should the assignment be submitted during a particular
week, or were they meant to be working on it that week?
Based on the guidelines format in Horton (2000), more
detail was given about the steps to take in doing the worksheets and
about the discussion list. Yet instead of clarity there was still some
confusion because there was too much detail, such as reminders for when
the previous assignments were due.
Another factor that has contributed to the clarity is
adding information about the worksheet/lesson plan, etc in the header of
each document to be downloaded. Each page can now be identified. This is
a small detail easily overlooked when preparing Word documents (even
adding pagination can be forgotten). “Tinkering with the presentation of
information can dramatically improve its stickiness”, as Gladwell points
out in Tipping Point, (Gladwell, 2000). As a result, students on
the third BUENGON offering said in the evaluation that the information
about the course contents and goals was very good (6.5; max 7). There
were very few emails requesting clarity on the tasks.
Interestingly enough, students claimed that
misunderstandings would be more easily rectified in the classroom which
would allow instant feedback. Yet campus students tend not to follow
instructions implicitly because they are relying on the verbal
instruction despite having been given it in writing, which would then be
subject to various interpretations and assumptions. On the whole, online
learners completed the tasks satisfactorily because they had only the
same written source.
Instead the problem lay in getting students to form
study groups. From the onset, students were to form their own groups so
that they would be encouraged to make contact with as many participants
as possible.
In the course evaluation, there was some dissatisfaction
in doing group work as expressed by this comment:
I am afraid that the “working in a group”-thing took
much time and gave very little. Trying to get in touch with my group and
getting any answers from them at all has taken a lot of time and the
waiting without anything happening was very annoying. I can understand
that the thought was well meant, but the result was just frustration and
a lot of time wasted on waiting for things (e-mails, suggestions, tasks)
that never came. I hope it worked out better in the other groups.
To counterbalance this though, was this comment:
I also want to say that my group has worked great, we
have all answered right away by email which is really important for the
group to stick together. We will also try to find a day to meet for a
beer, just to meet IRL.
Ideally collaborative learning should encourage
learners to rely on one another for gathering, evaluating and presenting
information, taking responsibility, and being more active. The benefits
for the tutor of learners sharing “knowledge and the burden of
learning”, (Horton, 2000) are that it is possible to monitor without too
much interference, and not be the sole evaluator. Furthermore, working
in small groups is a practical means of class management, whether
Face-to-Face (F2F) or in a virtual classroom. Marking group assignments
eases the burden instead of giving each individual a quick-turnaround in
feedback. For the online course, written communication was the major
means of providing feedback, which was particularly time-consuming and
stressful as the tutor was only allocated the same number of teaching
hours as for a campus course.
Some students enjoy close contact with the tutor and
engage in an intense email exchange on a one-on-one basis. Unlike the
traditional classroom setting, where a student would be considered as
dominating the class discussion to the possible annoyance of other
students, or feel inhibited in disclosing uncertainties,
misunderstandings, etc., the student engaged in emailing has privacy to
air one’s thoughts and can share concerns with the tutor in confidence.
Findings in an article on online education, stated that “students on
online courses report that they are getting more human interaction than
on any other type of course” (Education
Guardian, 2003). Common to all the BUENGON courses offered is that
the tutor has managed to establish good contact with students through
email, learning more about them than possible in the classroom.
Based on the experience so far, perhaps the tutor
needs to take an even more active role in encouraging contact between
students since it is not possible to rely on group dynamics in the
traditional classroom. The problem is that budget constraints prohibit
F2F meetings; students are not in the neighbourhood; and the delivery
does not as yet support synchronous technology. If the design of the
course is to include discussions and collaborative projects, then the
platform must support conferencing and not just be the exchange of data
(Meyer-Peyton in Lau, 2000).
4.
Analysis
Online communication is becoming an integral part in
education, training and business. There are two ways of viewing this
development, with celebration or abhorrence. Some embrace reading and
writing on the screen as being “more democratic, learner-centered,
holistic and natural” (Bolter, 1991; Landham, 1993, cited in Warschauer,
1999). Others view it as a means to propagate taking a surface approach
to content by clicking from one hyperlink to another, without pausing
long enough to read in any depth.
Biggs points out that the interpretation of ‘flexible
learning’ to mean uploading lecture notes on the Web because of the ease
of distribution, is feared as taking a surface approach to teaching
(Biggs, 1999). One of the concerns of the tutor is that discussion
topics could be mere flittings as inherent in ‘chat’, instead of being
given in-depth treatment. Another concern is that students might view
our intranet as an example of ‘shovelware’ (“content taken from any
source and put on the Web as fast as possible with little regard for
appearance and usability.”
www.whatis.com), and that we have joined the bandwagon,
“Quickly grasping its distribution possibilities,
colleges and universities everywhere have rushed to move resources for
courses on line. Material previously handled on paper or with slides and
transparencies -- syllabi, assignments, notes, data, diagrams,
references, exams -- are now presented through the computer.”
http://fraser.cc/Talks/Chronicle.html (Fraser, 1999)
For this offering of BUENGON, working in groups
seemed to be the biggest problem. The postgraduate student’s
investigation revealed that some learners wanted a minimum of
instruction and examples, just details about the hand-in assignments.
Others preferred to work individually and felt that the quality of the
course would have been improved considerably by minimizing or even
eliminating the group work. However, the teacher was concerned that the
students’ focus on the hand-in tasks and reluctance to work in
collaboration, suggested a surface approach to learning. As summarised
in Ramsden, “Learning to Teach in Higher Education”, some students’
intention was “only to complete task requirements”, and “focus on ‘the
signs’ (e.g. the words and sentences of the text)” (Ramsden, 1992).
Whether the medium of delivery is on campus or online, it is important
that activities are interactive to encourage deep learning to take
place.
One of the major disadvantages for the tutor is that
the form of asynchronous delivery is very labour intensive, something
that the participant may not be fully aware of. It is not feasible to
give individual feedback at the same time, so some student will be last
in the chain. Waiting for feedback may be a reason for dropping out, as
the student may feel isolated and demotivated.
To encourage commitment to the course in the hope of
reducing the drop-out rate, new students should pledge that they will
take responsibility for their learning, actively participate, and be
flexible and tolerant. Furthermore, they should be willing to create and
foster an online community. The advantages of what electronic learning
and the particular course may bring, should be clearly expressed
(Horton, 2000).
However, to be able to generate income students need
to be processed through the course. Unfortunately, the retention rate so
far is still low, with about half of the students dropping out. The
paradox is that those students who complete the course do so
successfully and express their great satisfaction. It seems to be a case
of all or nothing. Either the students thoroughly enjoy the course and
benefit, or they disappear.
Although teachers and students are becoming more
familiar with the use of computers in education, yet there is still the
need for face-to-face contact (Biggs, 1999). Despite all the seeming
advantages of holding computer-assisted conversations, there is the
yearning for human contact. Flexible learning is still too new, and
educators and learners need to adjust to the new technologies as well as
the new forms of electronic reading and writing.
5.
Conclusions
Lessons learned from this experience are that it is
important to establish a virtual place where students can meet to work
together on group assignments in privacy, and that they need a reason to
come back to the web page – the content must be ‘sticky’.
Geographical independence is one of the most
important advantages in choosing an online course. Both the teacher and
the students express the need for a well-structured course; this
includes the administration as well as the content. The postgraduate
student points out that the individual learning style is an important
factor for success in taking part in an online course. The teacher views
students’ approaches to learning as a key determiner as to whether
students interact with the tasks and one another, and see the course
through to its end. The various levels of computer skills and technical
knowledge may affect the success of following through the course. The
delivery platform therefore should be easy to use, reliable and support
the learning. However, if students are not required to attend live
classes, then money should be invested in the platform to create good
venues to allow synchronous meetings, for instance.
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-
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