Conducting a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a

web-based learning environment/course/application

Done by :Ghadah AL-Shanfari(57762)

Marwa AL-Ibrahim (58688)

Youmna AL-Yafai (59738)

Overview about the environment/course

• This course a bout dissemination of the innovation and provided with on-line discussion forum that allows and support the students to discusses and learn with each other by discussion forum

• Our purpose is to analyze this discussion forum to know the degree of discussion , interaction and Cognitive and content-related .

Cont,,

• The content of the dissection forum is a bout problems or difficulties associated with the dissemination of an educational innovation.

• Students should post in the forum some of these problems and how they can be overcome.

• Our participants and evaluation instruments is discussion content analysis indicators.

Degree of Discussion

• The total number of messages per student in the course:

• From our analysing we have found that , all 33 students have participated in the course forum but with some distinct variations in the amount of their participations.

Descriptive Statistics of Number of Messages Per Student

Messages

N Valid 33

Missing 1

Mean 9.03

Mode 6a

Std. Deviation 6.302

Minimum 1

Maximum 25

Sum 298

a. Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown

This table shows that the total messages from all the students are 298 messages and the average number of message participation per student was around 9 messages; in addition, it also shows that the minimum of participation was at least one message per student, while the maximum was 25 messages per student.

The Bar Graph clearly indicates that around 3% of the students have contributed at least once in the course forum and another 3% participated 25 times, whereas approximately 6% have participated 22 times, with about 12% participated from 6 – 7 times.

The total number of messages per student in each Topic:

• The course forum has 48 threads, and some threads had a lot of replies from students such as the last thread which received 14 replies. In the other hand, some threads did not receive any replies. Most students did not reply more than once in a single topic, although, some have replied a number of times such as a specific student who replied 7 times in the same topic thread.

The graph shows that the degree of participation in the course forum started slow and peaked later on, but then the participation slowed again soon after.

Interaction • One of the important features noticed in students’ responses was accepting other ideas" I agree with you. I strongly agree with your point, you are right, I believe this idea…" • A large proportion of students (48%) adapted what others said in their messages, instead of using their own points of view or expressions. •About social interaction, students attempted to create a sense of social presence by referring to each other by name and to some elements in the learning rather than interacting with the tutor

• The analysis shows that although the tutor emphasized the importance of thinking and adding personal thoughts (e.g., each student will have to post and describe AT LEAST one problem.

• "Each student will also have to respond/reply AT LEAST ONCE to the ideas posted by another student in the forum. You can respond by saying whether you agree or disagree with the views expressed by the other students. You could also propose solutions to the problems posted by other students") tutor’s instruction

Cognitive and content-related

Results of the content analysis• The results of the content analysis showed that 96% of the overall

number of statements posted by students was related to the main topic. The majority of problem which posted were between 3 to 10 lines and responds to that problem were as short responds. Also, all students have posted at least one problem (100%). However, only 1.4% was the Number of related asked questions provided by responders.

• But, there weren’t any asked questions for clarification provided by responders to get more explanation of the discussion problem. In addition, it was found that 9.6% of the responds were repeated by students.

Figure : Pattern of students’ responses in terms of cognitive and content-related

Cont,,• From the previous figure we see that:

• The majority of students have understand the actual purpose of on-line discussions, and responded to discussion problem as they would respond to if this problem stated by instructor or student in face-to-face course .

• In addition, some students had clarify there problem and state reasons for that problem E.g. student response said: (students and staff ” teachers ” prefer the traditional way of learning and still want text book and written materials because they don’t trust on the digital education).

• Also, some students who responds to the discussion forum had state some solutions for some posted problems E.g.: as the student said that: (we can solve this problem by adapting the innovation to the environment intended to use the innovation...).

Advantages and limitations Advantages of this technology:• It’s an interactive technology that encourages learners to be more a

active and open mind.• It encourages learners to discuss his/her opinions with each other.• It transfer the way of learning from face-to-face class room to on-line

class.• They can post any number of messages as much as they want and

whenever they want.

Limitations of this technology:• Some times students go out from the main topic of the course e.g.

( social chat ,, _• Some students don’t give there opinion E.g. they just say I agree.• Most student rely to others responses.