Project ADEPT (Assessment of Distance Education Pedagogy and Technology)

Hal Schlais, The (University of Wisconsin System Administration's specialist in Learning Technology Projects), and I are working on a project to assess what combination of technology/pedagogy/learner characteristics best enhances student satisfaction with distance education courses. In looking at students' level of satisfaction with distance education, we want to assess what factors contribute to that satisfaction; the extent to which delivery format affects whether they will be more or less likely continue to pursue higher education and be life-long learners; and how they will likely go about learning in the future.

Some of the characteristics of a distance format that we are interested in looking at are:

• What balance of synchronous/asynchronous content delivery is best for what kind of learners?
• What components of a distance format most enhance the experience for both students and professors?
• What components of a distance format most detract from the experience for both students and professors?
• What of value to the students did they miss most by a distance format?
• What of value to the students did they gain most by a distance format?
• How can the benefits of cooperative learning best be promoted at a distance?
• Is there some role/value to face-to-face promotive interaction in distance education?

We will be looking at several distance education courses taught within the University of Wisconsin Colleges (UWC) (two year colleges), in addition to a few other courses. We will be conducting our project in three phases:

1. In late January, we surveyed students in the UWC distance education courses to get some background information on them, looking for characteristics that we think might be relevant to their success in these courses characteristics. The survey asks for some basic demographics and attitudinal information on the students in the classes.

   Of particular interest to us are the two open-ended critical incident questions (questions 15 and 16). We are hoping to use responses to these two questions to construct a short objective rating scale to get at the degree to which students are independent learners, one of the factors that we think is crucial in the success of technology based/distance courses.

2. Throughout the semester, we will do some sampling of the students, some course observations, and talk with faculty.
3. At the end of the semester, we will again survey students, this time looking at satisfaction and performance. We will probably use some combination/adaptation of the Weekend College and Linear Algebra evaluation forms, below.

Below are a few links that you may find of interest. The first is the survey that students filled out at the beginning of the semester. The second is a posting I made to the AAHESGIT listserv, and many of the responses I received to it. The third is an end-of-the-semester instrument that we are thinking of adapting to a distance education format. The fourth and fifth are survey instruments I used with Hal Schlais' Linear Algebra students during the Fall 1996 semester. The fifth and sixth are survey instruments I used with beginning chemistry students during the Fall 1996 semester. The last two are links with more general information on assessing distance education.

Tom Creed

The "Beginning-of-semester" student Evaluation form.

Today's draft of the "End-of-semester" student Evaluation form.

Replies to Independent Learner Query on AAHESGIT listserv

Weekend College Evaluation form.

Beginning of semester Linear Algebra student Evaluation form.

End of semester Linear Algebra student Evaluation form.

Beginning of semester Chemistry student Evaluation form.

End of semester Chemistry student Evaluation form.

ALT-C 95 Papers

Distance Education Clearinghouse

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