Abstract
Are there any differences in outcomes between traditional classroom-based university courses and courses delivered via ALN, which feature extensive on-line interaction among students? Under what conditions are ALN courses most effective? What can be done to improve the publishability of ALN evaluations, and counter the attacks of critics?After providing background on the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) Virtual Classroom (VC) projects, this paper describes three studies that address the issue of the importance of collaborative learning strategies to the success of ALN for students. A three-year longitudinal field study of 26 courses that are part of an undergraduate degree in Information Systems compared the process and outcomes of learning using an on-line anytime/anywhere environment to those for comparison sections taught in the traditional classroom. An embedded field experiment looked at the separate and joint effects of working on-line versus in the classroom and of working individually versus in groups. Semi-structured interviews with experienced ALN faculty probed their pedagogy and their perceptions of whether or not students learned, on the average, more, less, or about the same as in their traditional sections. The results support the premise that when students are actively involved in collaborative (group) learning on-line, the outcomes can be as good as or better than those for traditional classes, but when individuals are simply receiving posted material and sending back individual work, the results are poorer than in traditionalclassrooms.
Highlights
On-line courses and distance learning in general have come under attack in the press recently
The third project, From Virtual Classroom to Virtual University, (1997-1999) has the same objectives as above, and the objective of spreading the innovation begun in the Computer Science department to disciplines throughout New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and to graduate and certificate programs as well as undergraduate programs
From 1993-1997, we undertook the design, delivery and evaluation of the effectiveness of an undergraduate major in Information Systems delivered in a distance ALN mode via a combination of videotaped lectures plus Virtual Classroom (VC) (NJIT’s computer conferencing system with special features to support asynchronous learning)
Summary
On-line courses and distance learning in general have come under attack in the press recently. Feeling threatened by the deconstruction of the university as we know it, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association commissioned a recent well-publicized report called “What’s the Difference?” on research regarding the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education as it compares to traditional classroom learning [31] They asked the wrong question, or at best, only part of the right question. After describing the NJIT projects that form the context for the studies presented, this paper briefly reviews the importance of theory in framing research that can inform the practice of teaching on-line, and the strengths and weaknesses of the major research methods that can be used It describes the theoretical framework used and a multi-method approach to answering a key question about the effectiveness of on-line courses: How important is the group discussion and collaboration component to successful outcomes?
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