Abstract
Abstract Universities in the U.S. typically offer to teach introductory engineering courses in large classes to tackle the increase in undergraduate engineering enrolment and to save on cost of teaching. Previous studies done on traditionally taught large classes have shown the negative effects it has on students and faculty. Many institutions use online courses to teach these large classes due to the flexibility they provide students with in their schedule and pace of learning, as well as being less expensive for the university. This study aimed to investigate the effect of online pedagogy on the academic performance of students enrolled in mechanics of materials course taught at a U.S. Midwestern University. The findings of the study reveal that the online pedagogy had a negative effect on student academic performance when compared with the traditionally taught group. This was true for all demographics (gender, enrolment status, nationality) and categories (high, medium and low academic performance) of students except for high performing students for whom online pedagogy shows promise.
Highlights
Undergraduate engineering has seen a constant rise in enrolment since 2005 (Yoder, 2015)
The participants who enrolled for the summer 2016 Mechanics of Materials course for either class started the course at the same academic standing
At the end of the Mechanics of materials (MM) course, the students enrolled in the online pedagogy scored significantly lower than that of their counterparts implying the negative impact of the online pedagogy on the academic performance of the class
Summary
Undergraduate engineering has seen a constant rise in enrolment since 2005 (Yoder, 2015). To handle the high enrolment of students, many universities have chosen to teach fundamental engineering courses in large classes. While this has the obvious advantage of cost reduction, large classes taught in the traditional manner have been shown to have a negative impact on student learning and dilute the learning process. Large classes refer to enrolment of 40 or more students in one class (Cuseo, 2007). Traditional class in this study refer to the class of students who are taught in a classroom setting with the instructor being physically present in the classroom following a fixed schedule of classes and exams. Students had a choice of meeting with teaching assistants of the course regarding the same
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