Video-based e-learning for an undergraduate engineering course

Abstract

E-learning offers tremendous benefits to teachers and students as it enhances the teaching and learning experience. Despite the adoption of e-learning in many educational institutions worldwide, delivery of construction management courses has been limited to traditional lecturing approach and the use of limited technology such as PowerPoint presentations and smartboards. This study investigates the effectiveness, benefits, and students’ satisfaction of using video-based e-learning approach in delivering the topics of a construction management undergraduate course by introducing instructional videos related to the topics of the course. A total of 67 undergraduate students were surveyed using a closed- and open-ended questionnaire in one of the leading universities in the United Arab Emirates. The survey was designed and posted using the Blackboard learning platform and students were asked to access these videos and respond to the survey via Blackboard. Surveyed students took the construction management undergraduate course in the “Fall 2018” semester using instructional videos supplied to them in the form of quick response codes in order to be more attractive learning experience to the students rather than using a direct web link that would be more accessible and even could be enriched with logo or numbers that reflects the quick response code contents rather than to distract them. This course has seven learning outcomes and the performance of students in the seven course learning outcomes was compared with that of students who took the same course in the “Spring 2018” semester using the conventional face-to-face lecturing. The responses received from students indicated that they are satisfied with the contents of the instruction videos and benefited from these videos. The received data were statistically analyzed and, despite the fact that this course required more hands-on applications, the results showed that e-learning resulted in better learning outcomes as compared to face-to-face lecturing and boosted student’s learning experience. Students also considered the e-learning approach useful as it allows them to access course material anytime and anywhere. Moreover, it has been revealed that absolutely more than 60% of the students preferred to study by blended learning, a combination of e-learning and traditional face-to-face lecturing since it is useful and helpful to their academic progress. It has been shown that despite the limited online e-learning resources of the course, educators can find solutions to enhance the traditional contents of the course material with the available online recorded resources or even to encourage students to develop a related interactive material to the course content that would be used for the subsequent semesters.