Faculty use and impressions of courseware management tools: A national survey

Journal of Engineering Education, Apr 2003 by St Clair, Sean, Baker, Nelson C

Three tools were similar in their usage rates: online syllabus, e-mail sent to the entire class, and e-mail sent to individual students. Two of these, both of the e-mail tools, were also the only tools to have a median rating of "very effective." Two of the four least used tools, chat rooms and online exams, were also ranked the lowest, with median ratings of "neutral." The remaining tools had various usage rates and median ratings of "effective," with the exception of online help activities, which had a "neutral" median rating. Two of the three most used tools were also the highest rated tools and two of the four least used tools were also rated the lowest.

E. Efficiency of Tools

Respondents were also asked to rate how efficient these tools were with respect to their time and resources. These ratings are simply faculty opinions; times for accomplishing tasks were not measured. The rating scale was similar to the effectiveness scale mentioned above except the word efficient replaced the word effective; the results of these ratings are presented in Figure 2 and are very similar to the results of the effectiveness ratings. Only two tools, e-mail to entire class and e-mail to individual students, had median ratings of "very efficient." Only two tools had median ratings of "neutral" as well: chat rooms and online exams. Again, two of the three most used tools were also the highest rated tools and two of the four least used tools were also the lowest rated tools.

F. Comparison of Effectiveness and Efficiency

In an effort to compare effectiveness to efficiency, a number of Mann-Whitney tests were run to compare the effectiveness ratings of each tool to the efficiency ratings of that tool. In most of the cases in this study there was no statistically significant difference between effectiveness and efficiency. In a few cases effectiveness was rated significantly higher than efficiency. However, there were no cases in which efficiency was rated significantly higher than effectiveness. The tools that did have a statistically significant difference were online notes with text only (U = 14,321.50, Z = 3.304, p

G. Ease of Use

The respondents were asked whether or not the Internet was easy for them to use and also whether or not the Internet was easy for the students to use for learning purposes. A five point scale was used for these questions as well, with the labels being "yes," "somewhat," "neutral," "not really," and "no." The Mann-Whitney test was again used to compare the ratings. Both questions had median ratings of "somewhat," but the Mann-Whitney test revealed that there is a statistically significant difference (U = 32,826, Z = 3.953, p

H. Time Saving

Respondents were also asked whether or not the Internet saved time as compared to standard instructional methods both for themselves and their students. The same scale was used as for the "ease of use" question, and again the Mann-Whitney test was used to compare ratings. The median rating for faculty was "neutral" and the median rating for students was "somewhat." Again, there was a statistically significant difference (U = 32,269, Z = 4.434, p