Abstract
Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) concluded that general education improves students’ critical thinking. General education English courses have used the Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) platform for more than a decade. Moodle has become a popular free software package to assist educators and researchers in harnessing the benefits of online learning communities. This study uses a non-experimental, quantitative SPSS 17.0 research design to explore the relationship among demographic characteristics, Moodle use, flexible learning, and English as a second language (ESL) learning outcomes.The accessible population sample consisted of 231 participants, resulting in a response rate of 87%. The participants were college students from 2 colleges in Taiwan. The results show that Hypothesis 1 was supported for all variables for the ESL outcome (p = .0). Hypothesis 2 was supported for all variables for the pretest and posttest outcomes (p = .0). Hypothesis 3 was supported for Moodle use and flexible learning with Moodle (p = .0). Hypothesis 4 was not supported, and for general English, the posttest outcome explained more variance than the pretest outcome. Hypothesis 5 was not supported for Moodle use and the general English and English outcomes. The results of this study have limited applicability because the participants were from 2 small colleges. The distribution of the groups was also irregular. Although the results are valid, they should not be overgeneralized to the whole population. Future studies on general education English should sample all colleges in Taiwan. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n3p97
Highlights
All general education programs share similar goals: creating experiences, communicating skill sets, and fostering knowledge important to all students
H2: Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) use, flexible learning, and English as a second language (ESL) learning outcomes are statistically significant for general English pretest and posttest outcomes
H4: The general education English posttest explains more of the relationship between Moodle use, flexible learning, and ESL learning outcomes than the general education English pretest
Summary
All general education programs share similar goals: creating experiences, communicating skill sets, and fostering knowledge important to all students. The Harvard Report of 1945 and the Yale Report of 1828 stated that the purpose of general education was to improve student spiritual nurturing and to foster their communication, thinking, value cognition, and judgment. General education English courses have used the Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) platform for more than a decade. Open source systems—which provide management functions for multimedia materials, interactive communication, and learning records—are useful for general education English courses (Nozawa, 2011). This study uses the Moodle platform to teach undergraduate students English using a flexible education perspective. Many Taiwanese students are too shy or scared to learn or speak English in the classroom. This study uses Moodle and e-learning to assist college students by creating an efficient alternative method of learning English to stimulate communication among participants
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