Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Instructional Technology
University of Houston Study: Hybrid Courses More Effective for Students
4/8/2008
A technical report from a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a hybrid class that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.Brian McFarlin, a researcher and assistant professor, created e-learning courses using Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio Pro and integrated this with classroom lectures. The software provides tools to create e-learning courses from PowerPoint and to develop interactive content, quizzes, assessments and surveys.
McFarlin's traditional Kinesiology class met twice a week for a 90-minute lecture in a large auditorium. The first class each week would provide general information; the second lecture would cover advanced topics. Alternatively, the hybrid class met once a week for traditional 90-minute lectures augmented with in-class response after doing 90 minutes of online work, which included a quiz that could be taken twice. The online courses were accessed by students through the school's WebCT (now BlackBoard) Vista learning management system.
Each online lecture took between 16 and 20 hours to create, McFarlin estimated.
His research examined 658 final grades from six semesters. Students who attended the hybrid course received final grades that were 10% higher than those who attended the traditional class, which translated to a full letter grade increase.
"Presumably, this increase is due to the fact that students were able to increase their exposure to course content via access to material on WebCT," McFarlin writes in his report, which was published in Advances in Physiology Education.
"The main reasons I chose Articulate were for its ease-of-use and the quality of the output," said McFarlin. "If you can use PowerPoint, then your learning curve is minimal and the results are really engaging. I also like how easily Articulate produces SCORM output that lets me publish my courses to our university LMS for student access and tracking."
McFarlin said he was surprised by the dramatic increase in student grades "I personally think that the hybrid format is the wave of the future," he said.
Additional information about the research is available at the university's Web site.
Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
