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

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

I. Tools Used

Participants in the survey were asked to check which of the listed tools, both for CMTs and WPTs, they had used to publish information on the Internet. A number of difference of proportions tests were conducted to see where breaks in usage rates might have occurred. Due to the fact that more than one comparison was being made on the same data, Bonferroni adjustments were made to the alpha levels and associated critical Z scores.

The usage rates for the most popular (those with use rates over 5 percent) WPTs are given in Table 4. The most popular WPTs were FTP, e-mail, and Adobe Acrobat, and there was no statistically significant difference between their usage rates. There was, however, a statistically significant difference (Z = 5.2152, p

A similar analysis was performed with the CMTs. Table 5 contains the usage rates for the most popular (those with usage rates over 5 percent) CMTs. Tools designed in-house were significantly (Z = 2.748, p

J. CMT and WPT Use

Participants were given a list of tasks that could be completed either through the use of a CMT or WPT and asked which type of tool they used. Figure 3 gives the tasks and the percentages of people who used each type of tool to accomplish the tasks. A difference of proportions test was conducted on the usage rates for each task to see whether or not there was a statistically significant difference between the number of people who used CMTs for a specific task and the number of people who used WPTs.

The tasks that were reported as being completed more often with WPTs are generally those for which WPTs were specifically designed, and thus it logically follows that WPTs were used more often to accomplish them. These tasks were as follows:

* Create text only Web pages (Z = 7.59, p

* Create pages with graphics (Z = 8.44, p

* Create complex online tools (Z = 3.43, p

* Create links to outside info (Z = 5.71, p

* Create maintain calendars (Z = 4.35, p

* E-mail entire class (Z = 2.27, p

* E-mail individual students (Z = 3.38, p

* Create homework (Z = 4.06, p

* Assign homework (Z = 3.74, p

* Facilitate in student research (Z = 4.46, p

The tasks that were reported as being completed more often with CMTs seem to be fairly complex tasks that would be hard to accomplish if starting from scratch, even with a WPT, but are built into most CMTs. It seems logical that these would be the tasks accomplished more often with CMTs. These tasks were as follows:

* Create message boards (Z = -2.46, p

* Conduct live discussions (Z = -2.20, p

* Track students' grades (Z = -3.05, p

* Distribute progress reports (Z = -2.08, p

* Track students usage of Web pages (Z = -3.39, p

There were six tasks that were completed equally through the use of CMTs and WPTs: collecting homework, giving quizzes, giving exams, automatic grading, reporting grades, and allowing students to post to Web pages. Some of these tasks had very low usage rates, and perhaps the rates were too low to accurately test for significance. Some of these tasks, however, do seem as if they could be accomplished equally well through both the use of CMTs and WPTs. For example collecting homework or reporting grades can be done equally well with some standard functions of CMTs or through e-mail, which was considered a WPT in this study.