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Articulate Software Helps College Students Receive Higher Grades According to University of Houston Study

Business Wire, April 3, 2008

Research Project Reveals That Hybrid Teaching Approach - Using Articulate Software to Create E-Learning - Dramatically Improves Student Performance

NEW YORK -- 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.

Dr. Brian McFarlin, a researcher and assistant professor at the University of Houston created e-learning courses using Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio Pro and incorporated this in conjunction with classroom lectures. His traditional Kinesiology class met twice a week for a 90-minute lecture in a large auditorium. Alternatively, his hybrid class met once a week for traditional 90-minute lectures augmented with Articulate-created e-learning courses. The courses were accessed by students from the University's WebCT Learning Management System (LMS).

"The main reasons I chose Articulate was for its ease-of-use and the quality of the output," said Dr. 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."

Student feedback regarding the hybrid teaching model was extremely positive. "I was surprised that the increase in student grades was so dramatic," continued Dr. McFarlin. "I personally think that the hybrid format is the wave of the future."

"I constantly hear about the outstanding results that college instructors are getting using Articulate software to produce online courses that supplement or replace traditional lectures," said Tom Kuhlmann, Articulate's vice president of community and author of the Rapid E-Learning Blog. "It's great that a research study has been published that supports these anecdotal results."

The full study has been published in "Advances in Physiology Education" http://advan.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/32/1/86 with additional information available at the University of Houston's web site: http://www.hhp.uh.edu/Currentevents/08_McFarlin_course.cfm.> About Articulate

Articulate is the market leader in rapid e-learning software. Articulate products are used by organizations worldwide to quickly create rich and interactive learning content and communication resources. The company's Rapid E-Learning Studio Professional combines three premier products, Articulate Presenter 5, Quizmaker 2 and Engage, to give learning professionals and subject-matter experts an easy-to-use toolset to create e-learning courses, presentations, quizzes, and surveys. Morgan Stanley, FedEx, Dell, Target, 3M, John Deere, and Harvard Business School are among the thousands of corporate, government, and academic organizations currently using Articulate products for rapid e-learning. Articulate is ranked the 15th fastest growing technology company in North America by Deloitte on their 2006 Technology Fast 500 Rising Star list.