Juhani Tuovinen

Inferring Student Learning Behaviour from Website Interactions: A Usage Analysis

Web-based learning environments are now used extensively as integral components of course delivery in tertiary education. To provide an effective learning environment, it is important that educators understand how these environments are used by their students. In conventional teaching environments educators are able to obtain feedback on student learning experiences in face-to-face interactions with their students, enabling continual evaluation of their teaching programs. However, when students work in electronic environments, this informal monitoring is not possible; educators must look for other ways to attain this information. Capturing and recording student interactions with a website provides a rich source of information from data that is gathered unobtrusively. The aim of this study was firstly to explore what information can be gained from analysing student interactions with Web-based learning environments and secondly to determine the value of this process in providing information about student learning behaviours and learning outcomes. This study has provided critical information to educators about the learning behaviour of their students, informing future enhancements and developments to a courseware website and the teaching program it supports.

Optimising student cognitive load in computer education

Cognitive Load Theory provides a coherent way to optimise students cognitive processing load during learning. A range of principles identified in this theory can be applied to improve student processing during learning computing content. These principles range from the goal free problem solving to worked examples, split-attention, redundancy and variability effects. However, these principles need to be applied strategically. In this paper the most important consideration for strategic planning of computer education, ranging from the content element interactivity, mental effort measurement to student prior knowledge, are organised into a set of instructional choices. These choices are summarised in a flow chart, which can be used in the educational planning, as a tool to help ensure the identified issues are considered in an optimal sequence.

Determining website usage time from interactions: data preparation and analysis

With the widespread adoption of the Web in tertiary education, students often work in electronic environments away from the direct observation of their educators. It is therefore of critical importance to develop techniques that will inform educators about how their students are using these new environments. A useful metric for gaining an understanding of student use of a Website is the time they spend using the site. This may be determined from captured and recorded student interactions with the Website. However, Website interactions present a large collection of data in a format that is difficult to handle. Using this data to determine access times is not a trivial task and several stages of preprocessing need to be performed. This article presents a method to prepare and analyse Website interaction data to determine site access times. Interactions captured from a courseware Website are used to illustrate this technique. This study has provided valuable information about student use of the site to the educators, informing future enhancements and developments to the Website.

Developing Courseware for Higher Education

In CFL development, relationships can be established between development team organisational maturity, selection of an iterative development methodology, and effective use of evaluation in a pedagogical as well as a technological domain, as guides to successful project outcomes. A large, higher education multimedia CFL product was developed as two projects (two years apart) by multidisciplinary teams. The first project was developed using a linear-sequential methodology. Significant technical evaluation took place but only minimal pedagogical evaluation was undertaken, mainly after alpha testing. The second project used an iterative approach to development and incorporated formative pedagogical evaluation as part of the development methodology. Resource wastage was considerably reduced and student learning requirements were better realised.