Sunday, April 26, 2009

Week 7-8 Draft ideas for Sampling Methods/Tools:

As outlined in the last post- it looks like I should be concentrating on a 'formative evaluation', given the timing and the scale of the project (both for this assessment and for the pending release of the programme to students). Therefore these comments are based on Bronwyns' feedback, thanks, Bronwyn. A slight rewording of my original intention of evaluating this summative point: "Are the activities effective and matching the L.O ?" to this formative point: "Are the activities relevent for the L.O"....

E-Learning Guidelines to evaluate against:

Given we need to evaluate against two e-learning guidelines (and I have been previously discussing three): my draft plan now will include the following:

ST9: - reworded - for a user review - to investigate useability ( access, navigation, ease of use)and effectiveness (content, activities, L.O and assessment)-
"Do the technologies employed successfully help the students participate and learn"?

e.g Does the use of interactive tools and forums help the student complete (engage with) the course (successfully)?


SD3: - reworded - for a peer review - to investigate if the activites are relevent for the L.O.
"Are students provided with relevent information and current thinking in their field".
e.g Can the students 'successfully' engage with the activities provided with no f2F contact?


I see that the next step is to work on further sub-questions however I will make contact with Brownwyn first.


Paradigm/Model:
Defineatly Multiple-methods model/Ecletic-mixed methods-pragmatic paradigm for a Formative Evaluation- of the Interactive web-based programm as outlined in the previous Blog postings.


Sampling Methods: I have not completely thought through the specifics of the triangulation and bracketing yet.

But- I would like to discuss further and negotiate the following:

Peer review-discussion forum- qualititative-small groups
Questionaires- for the students while using the course-limitations on numbers-qualitative
Check lists-ditto, for the students
some paper-based, some email/ online questionaire/evaluation in Moodle.

1 comment:

Bronwyn hegarty said...

Debra It was good to have a chat today and confirm that your guidelines are right on track and your sub-questions are shaping up well.

As I mentioned if you can invite 3-5 students to look at the online course and work through the materials - then fill out a questionnaire with questions around usability (navigation, access etc.) and effectiveness for learning (design), this will be a good size sample. and 3 academic staff to engage in a discussion regarding the design of the activities this will be adequate for this project.

If you can get an expert reviewer this would also be great. You just need to be clear what you want to find out from the expert reviewer & develop some guiding questions for him or her to use when looking at the material. I am looking forward to reading your next draft for the plan on Google documents. Great work so far! :)