Web-based Learning: Some Success Factors for Tertiary Students
Kwok-Wing LAI
School of Education, University of Otago
PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand
Tel: 64-3-4798806,
Fax: 64-3-4798349
E-mail:
Increasingly tertiary teachers have used the Web to support their teaching. However, Web-based learning environments may impose additional cognitive and social demands on the learner. A study was conducted in a New Zealand university in 2001 to investigate what coping strategies learners used and the factors contributing to the success of online learning. 35 students participated in the study, and each student was interviewed three times during the course of study. Preliminary findings from 9 students are reported in this paper. Learner, communication, social, teacher, and organisational factors were identified in this study as important factors affecting online learning.
Key words: online learning evaluation tertiary education
1 INTRODUCTION
Increasingly tertiary teachers are using the Web to support their teaching. For example, teachers archive lecture notes, examination scripts, or course-related materials in course Web sites, providing students easier access to course materials. In some Web-assisted courses, electronic mail and discussion lists are also used to supplement teaching and students are encouraged to share and reflect their ideas in these electronic discussion forums. Increasingly the Web has also been used as the sole course delivery system. In these Web-based learning courses, face-to-face meetings are replaced by virtual discussions and students need to have regular access to the Internet in order to complete the courses. According to Rumble （2001）, E-learning or Web-based learning centres on active and interactive learning, collaborative construction of meaning, reflective learning, thus supports and facilitates constructivist, socio-cultural, as well as metacognitive models of education.
While research （Institute for Higher Education Policy, 1999） in general suggests that there are no significant differences in terms of achievement between electronic and face-to-face modes of learning, it is noted that taking a Web-based courses may impose additional cognitive and social demands on a learner. A number of factors have been suggested in the literature, which may affect the success of E-learning. For example, Kazmer （2000） suggests that there are seven aspects potential students have to consider if they have to cope with the demands of studying at a distance. They include: （a） planning; （b） technology; （c） workload; （d） social issues; （e） integrating life and study; （f） administrative adaptation; and （g） effort and rewards. Sherry （2000） has also provided a framework to categorise the factors affecting online interaction, which include: （a） learner factors such as age, gender, & learning style; （b） organisational factors such as administrative and technical support; and （c） technological factors such as the use of different synchronous and asynchronous tools in the learning environment.
A study was conducted in 2001 to investigate the coping strategies used by students in 10 Web-based courses, offered by a New Zealand university. A total of 35 students have been interviewed by telephone. Each participant was interviewed three times, one at the beginning of the course, one in the middle, and one at the end. All these students have successfully completed at least one course. In this paper some preliminary findings collected from 9 graduate students are reported in this paper. These students were selected from three first semester courses. Six of them were female and three were male.
A brief description of these Web-based course is provided in the following section and the preliminary findings are reported in section 3.
2 DESCRIPTION OF THE WEB-BASED COURSES
A Web-based learning environment has been designed specifically for these courses. A course home page is shown in Figure 1. For a more detailed discussion of the learning environment, please refer to Trewern & Lai （2001）.
Figure 1 An example of a course homepage
The Learning environment has the following characteristics:
Classroom interaction. Traditionally, a distance learner is a lonely learner and learning is very much individually oriented. With the use of the Internet, E-learning becomes interactive and classroom interaction can take place either by email exchanges or by synchronous and asynchronous conferencing. In our Web-based courses, asynchronous computer conferencing has been designed as the focus of all the learning activities. Instead of having face-to-face group discussions, students share their opinions and experience by participating in computer-mediated discussion forums. For a semester-long paper, typically there are four 2-week long virtual conferences. There is a main theme in each conference. Before the conference, students are given some background reading materials to prepare themselves for participation. Then the conference moderator will post a number of questions to each sub-conference to kick-off the discussion, similar to a face-to-face meeting. Students will discuss these questions and take their time to read and post their comments to the virtual classroom. They may initiate new discussion topics as the discussion flows on. To maximize classroom interaction, synchronous chat sessions are also designed as learning activities. There are frequent email communications between students and staff in this learning environment as well.
Collaboration. The Internet has great potential to foster collaboration. Students taking our Web-based courses are asked to work closely in groups as well as with the teaching staff. Learning activities are designed in this learning environment to encourage exchange of opinions, ideas, and values.
Social interaction. It is believed that students learn best when they have the opportunities to socialise with other students. Mutual support is believed to be essential for adult learners, particularly when they learn at a distance. A “coffee lounge” has been included in the course Web site. This is a discussion area reserved for socially related matters and is maintained to enhance communication at the social level.
Accessible course materials and databases. Lack of access to course information and reading materials could be a big concern for distance learners. In these online courses, a CD-ROM is provided to students, which contains a complete archive of course materials and student support information. The Web site provides a learning structure to assist planning. This allows students the flexibility to plan forward or work on material retrospectively if they encounter events or situations preventing them from devoting short periods time to courses. Several local and international databases are linked to the site and distance students can access bibliographic databases purchased by the university central library from their home computers wherever they may be located. A local searchable database allows students to borrow computer software from the School of Education resource centre for certain courses.
Learning structure. The course Web site is structured in a way to provide the best support to students to complete their studies on time. In each course Web site, weekly learning tasks are scheduled. There is an Introduction Page for each week, which outlines its learning objectives. This page is linked to three additional pages. The What to Know page gives students more detailed guidelines for the weekly learning program. The What to Read page lists the weekly reading assignments and the What to Do page outlines the weekly hands-on activities.
Students offices. A specific area on each course Web site is assigned to students as offices. Feedback and comments on student assignments are posted to individual offices. They are password protected to maintain confidentiality.
User control. A notice board area is provided where information about administrative matters relating to these courses is broadcasted regularly. Students can also post information to the notice board about course-related matters or request collaborative partners in certain projects and assignments. A student directory is also maintained where students can post biographical details about themselves.
3 SUCCESS FACTORS FOR ONLINE LEARNING
From the study, some of the key factors affecting the success of students doing these Web-based courses have been identified. They are categorised as （a） learner factors; （b） communication factors; （c） social factors; （d） teacher factors; and （e） organizational factors.
3.1 Learner factors
The ability to work independently. Although numerous Web tools are now available to facilitate intensive online interaction, a lot of independent work has to be done by the learner in a Web-based learning environment. A successful online student is one who is able to work independently:
“I certainly enjoy other people but can work quite effectively by myself…I would rather choose [to] do the topic by myself and get what I want out of the course for myself, than collaborate on something which isn’t perhaps exactly what I want” （A18）
Willing to adapt. Students in these courses were willing to adapt their learning styles to the new learning environment. Some students may initially prefer face-to-face contact, but in general they found little problem interacting with colleagues online. To succeed they need to adapt:
“Initially I thought I couldn’t learn sitting in front a computer and reading and I thought, no, I’ve got to have that face-to-face contact but, once I got into like chat sessions and that sort of thing, I really enjoyed that and I think having the chat sessions is a really good way of getting to meet people…” （B09）.
Highly motivated. Online students have to be more self-driven and more motivated to learn than on-campus students:
“The fact that you don’t have to be on the computer at certain times like you do at varsity [university]…it’s a lot more self-driven than the papers [courses] at varsity because you go to the classes and take the notes at varsity and, it’s a bit different from a computer. You’re not actually hearing the lecturer.” （B03）
This student learned how to adjust the way he worked:
“I suppose, making myself sit down and do the work that way…and trying to remind myself that assignments are due and stuff because at varsity, everybody’s talking about the assignments that are coming up so you’ve got that constant reminder there whereas on the computer, you sort of don’t have that.” B03
Managing time. Having good time management skills has been mentioned in this study as one of the most important success factors to complete the courses online. As commented by one student:
"I felt I had to be very organised...to make sure I sort of got there by the end of the period...I wasn't using anything very formal, just do extra reading when I could...so if other things came up with work or family...I could deal with them...it made the difference between me actually completing it and not completing it." A18
Doing online courses require extra time and a good working environment:
“The work needs concentrated effort and you can flick in for 10 minutes to check your email, but you just need a quiet area. You need to set aside an hour or two just to get into it… I would really strongly emphasise that if anyone talks about the course, they’d have to be given realistic time frames. A normal postgrad course takes an hour [a credit] point but because of the time involved with using search engines etc., you should plan to use at least two hours per point or three hours per point.” A15
The workload may be an issue if learners were not sufficiently Internet literate. The workload of these courses was heavier than onsite courses because students had to learn how to use and manage several Web tools. In general students found the course site easy to use but they agreed that having a background in computing would be helpful. A previous study （Lai, 1997） reported that students could spend up to 25 hours per week just reading and answering conference postings.
To reduce the workload, some students used ‘selective neglect’ （Burge, 1994） as a coping strategy to deal with the reading load in these courses. When asked how he could keep up with the work in the course, a student had the following response:
“…like I was chasing my tail a little bit but, I got to the end of the course and just caught up then and probably there was a few readings that I let go but that was just a case of having to.” （B06）
One student had his own coping strategy to deal with the heavy workload:
“Postings take the most time and most effort. At the beginning I would scan the screen and type in, type in a comment but now I’ve actually taken a copy of the postings, sitting down, reading them, going away, thinking about them, maybe going back sort of reading through something else.” （A15）
3.2 Communication Factors
In an online learning environment, students have to be able to master the communication technologies alongside with the learning tasks that they have to complete on time. Other than technological anxiety, some students were quite concerned to work with other people online that they haven’t met before. As commented by one student:
“I’m a bit anxious about [the collaboration] because of two people that I’m going to be working with are right at the top of and I’m right down here so…could make it quite difficult. Last year I did a collaborative assignment and I suppose I took an easy option and asked two people that were in [a place] which I knew was close that I knew was going to be able to actually get to [the place] so we actually met face-to-face, to work on our assignment. It didn’t quite work like that. This time though we’re going to have an online chat tomorrow night and get things going, I just a bit anxious about [it].” （B09）
How to reduce the anxiety? According to one student:
“I find that if you have a reasonable chat session, actually get to know other people in that situation…” （B09）
3.3 Social Factors
Providing social support. Ample social support is needed in online learning to enable and motivate learners to learn （Harasim, 2000）. It is important that learners have to feel their social presence in a mediated learning environment （Leh, 2001）. Without social support, students will feel very much isolated which may reduce their interaction.
To be socially presence means that students have to feel that they are part of the class. The way to do it is to provide them with ample opportunities to interact with the class. As pointed out by one student:
“I do find that there’s sufficient sort of interaction within the conferencing to satisfy that sort of classroom interaction.” （A18）