Η επίδραση του μοντέλου της μάθησης μέσω της επίλυσης προβλήματος, στα κίνητρα, στις στρατηγικές μάθησης και στην εμπλοκή των φοιτητών κατά την περίοδο της πανδημίας του Covid-19. Μελέτη περίπτωσης στο MS Teams

Abstract

The Covid-19 era, has severely affected several aspects of human activity, including academic education, but also paved the way for innovation. The Department of Business Administration in the University of West Attica, Greece, has a long-standing tradition in designing and delivering small group work projects which foster the development of managerial skills. Before Covid-19, coaching of working groups was taking place physical, in class environment, under the form of face-to-face interaction. However, due to global restrictions and university closure, this process had to be adapted to an online setting. Education providers all over the word experiment with different types of educational strategies that support the transition from face to face to distance modes of delivery. Among online learning factors mentioned in e-learning literature, it is argued that learners’ motivation has been considered as one of the most important, which had a significant impact on online learning effectiveness. Drawing from constructivism theory, Problem-Based Learning (PBL) can be a pedagogical tool to enhance learners’ motivation and develop work-based skills. Furthermore, it can be effectively implemented by any instructional designer. In this master thesis, a one group pre-test & post-test quasi-experimental research was conducted in the Department of Business Administration of West Attica University. There were 162 1st year undergraduate students participated in the experimental e-course. The e-course design was based on PBL and was developed in MS Teams digital collaboration and communication platform. The approach is implemented by combing built-in Microsoft’s ecosystem tools and specific cooperative learning strategies. The analysis of the results reveals that our proposed e-course design framework enhances students’ intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, critical-thinking and peer learning, as measured by Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). There was no significant difference between the means of extrinsic motivation and help seeking scores, of pre-test and post-test, after the experimental e-course. Furthermore, overall research results indicate that the experimental e-course design enhances students’ engagement and helps them to develop a positive attitude towards teamwork, as measured by MS Team analytics. Although this work is focused on the MS Teams platform, the e-course design framework can be repurposed and applied to different online learning platforms.