blackboard use and students’ performance adugna lemi department of economics umass boston email:...
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Blackboard Use and Students’ Performance
Adugna LemiDepartment of Economics
UMass BostonEmail: [email protected]
May 15, 2009
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Motivation
• The University is spending a large sum of money to purchase and maintain LMS for the university community.
• Its main target is to improve teaching and learning through improved communication for students and faculty.
• It is expected that there would be some improvements in students’ performance as a result of the improved communication.
• However, One need to see hard evidence to substantiate the expected benefits.
• The purpose of this study is to present evidence or lack of evidence about the expected benefit.
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Previous Studies
• Simkins (1999), Journal of Economic Education– In economics courses, use of web-assisted methods does not
improve students performance compared to traditional way of teaching.
• Rivera (2002), Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration– Based on survey of students (41 in traditional, 40 in hybrid and 53
in web-based information system courses).– There is no significant difference in student performance
regardless of the class format.• Hammoud, et. al. (2008), International Journal of
Information and Communication Technology Education – Using survey and data from the tracking records of WebCT– Use of WebCT has positive influence on students’ grades
(performances).
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Methods and Data
• I used Blackboard tracking record of students for three of my courses (Econ 101, Econ 334 and Econ 336) from Spring 2008 & Spring 2009. The following records are used:– Total time spent, Folders and Files Viewed, and
Number of Sessions accessed by each student.
• As performance indicator, I used grades points of each student.
• I tried to show if there is any link between the use of Blackboard and students’ performance.
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02
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0F
req
ue
ncy
101 334 336
by courseSessions and Documents Viewed
Folders FilesSessions
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01
23
4F
req
ue
ncy
101 334 336
by courseTime Spent and Grades
Time Grade
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Econ 334: Document viewed and grade
0
50
100
150
200
250
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
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3.5
4
4.5
Folders View ed
Files View ed
Grade Pt
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Econ 334: Sessions and Grades
0
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50
60
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
0
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Sessions
Grade Pt
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Econ 334: Time Spent and Grades
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
12.00
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0
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Time in hr
Grade Pt
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Econ 336: Sessions and Grades
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
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Sessions
Grade Pt
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Econ 336: Time Spent and Grades
0.00
2.00
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6.00
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10.00
12.00
14.00
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20.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
0
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Time in hr
Grade Pt
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Econ 336: Files Viewed and Grades
0
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
0
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Folders View ed
Files View ed
Grade Pt
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Econ 101: Sessions and Grade
0
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
0
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Sessions
grade pt
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Econ 101: Time Spent and Grade
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
0
0.5
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Time in hr
grade pt
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Econ 101: Files Viewed and Grades
0
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25
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
0
0.5
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Folders view ed
Files view ed
grade pt
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Files Viewed and Grades
0
50
100
150
200
250
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93
0
0.5
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1.5
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folders view ed
files view ed
grade pt
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Sessions and Grades
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93
0
0.5
1
1.5
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2.5
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sessions
grade pt
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Time Spent and Grade
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
12.00
14.00
16.00
18.00
20.00
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93
0
0.5
1
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time in hr
grade pt
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Correlation Coefficients
93 93 92 84 93 0.0726 0.6562 0.7793 0.4926 gradept 0.1871* -0.0468 0.0296 -0.0759 1.0000 84 84 84 84 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 filesviewed 0.5517* 0.4495* 0.8940* 1.0000 92 92 92 0.0000 0.0000foldersvie~d 0.7566* 0.6545* 1.0000 93 93 0.0000 timeinhr 0.5827* 1.0000 93 sessions 1.0000 sessions timeinhr folder~d filesv~d gradept
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Conclusions• For sample semesters and courses considered
in this study there seems to be no strong link between Blackboard use and students’ performance.
• Although there is a very weak correlation between sessions attended and students’ performance.
• This should not be taken as an evidence to show the limited benefits of LMS, further study needs to be done at the university level with larger sample from different departments and colleges.
• It is also important to compare performance under different formats (traditional, hybrid, and online)