Alexandra Yeung

Designing Effective E-Learning Environments - Should We Use Still Pictures, Animations or Interactivity?

There has been much research interest in the area of multimedia learning and using e-learning to assist student learning. A range of tools and teaching materials are used to develop students’ understanding in different domains. We have developed an online chemistry module with three different versions, designed to determine the most effective way for enhancing student learning and addressing misconceptions students may have. One version incorporates the use of still pictures, one version uses animations and simulations, and the final version uses animations and simulations together with interactivity. The present study investigated students’ perception of the modules and performance associated with using these different versions of the module. While students rated the animated and interactive versions of the module more highly than the one that had still pictures only, this did not translate to increased performance in associated tests.

Development, Evaluation and Use of a Student Experience Survey in Undergraduate Science Laboratories: The Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory Student Laboratory Learning Experience Survey.

Student experience surveys have become increasingly popular to probe various aspects of processes and outcomes in higher education, such as measuring student perceptions of the learning environment and identifying aspects that could be improved. This paper reports on a particular survey for evaluating individual experiments that has been developed over some 15 years as part of a large national Australian study pertaining to the area of undergraduate laboratories—Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory. This paper reports on the development of the survey instrument and the evaluation of the survey using student responses to experiments from different institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. A total of 3153 student responses have been analysed using factor analysis. Three factors, motivation, assessment and resources, have been identified as contributing to improved student attitudes to laboratory activities. A central focus of the survey is to provide feedback to practitioners to iteratively improve experiments. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.

Using the Personalization Hypothesis to Design E-Learning Environments

This paper reports a study that set out to test the personalization hypothesis in the domain of chemistry. E-learning environments were used in this study that were compulsory pre-laboratory activities, used to prepare students to carry out experiments in chemistry. Retention and transfer tests were conducted immediately after students had completed the pre-laboratory work and were used to investigate students’ academic performance. Approximately 600 students took part in the project in semester 2, 2005 and about 800 participated in semester 1, 2008, as well as a small bridging course group in 2007. Each study covered a range of levels of prior knowledge within the domain. Characteristics of language background and gender were also taken into account.