How do students select what to neglect?

1. Judith JeffcoateAssociate Teaching FellowCOLMSCT How do students select what to neglect? Centre for Open Learning of Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology (COLMSCT)Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

2. Background • This project focused on support for postgraduate students taking OU computing courses • M883 Software Requirements for Business Systems • Presented twice a year (May and November) • Printed and online materials via a VLE (Moodle) • Limited tutorial support via three assignments • Outcomes include: “understand the state-of-the-art in requirements engineering, leading to a deep and systematic understanding of the subject area” • Achieved “through the use of books, reference papers (e.g. conference and journal publications) and other audio/visual media”

3. Phase 1 Survey of tutorial group from Nov 06 presentation Project structure Phase 2 Pilot study with volunteers on May 07 presentation Analysis of findings Phase 3 Full study open to all on May 08 presentation Analysis of findings Evaluation

4. Phase 3 • Open to all 47 students on May 08 presentation • Based on feedback from the pilot study • Three optional activities using discussion forums • Each activity was based on one of the papers provided by the course team and identified as essential reading • A link to each activity was provided from the appropriate week within the online study calendar • A reminder was provided following the link to the paper within the resources page

5. Example questions • For each activity, students were asked to read a paper and then try to apply the concepts to their own work. • Examples: • Can you identify at least one goal for the project that fits into the above structure? If so, please post your example(s) to the forum. • Can you select at least one rule of thumb that could be used to identify a functional requirement for your project that might otherwise have been missed? If so, please post your example(s) to the forum.

6. Telephone survey • Purposive sampling (three groups): • Made active contributions to First Class and optional discussion forums • Generally looked at the conference and forums but rarely or never contributed • Did not contribute or look at the conference and forums

7. Task (description) • “The criteria for completion of the tasks should be clearly stated” • Group (identification of others) • “Ability to easily see who wrote what and when” • Individual (learning) • “Online activities should back up what I’ve learned from reading the course materials” • System (usability) • “Easy and reliable means of creating and editing contributions” Requirements (from phase 1)

8. Other factors (from phase 3) • Analysis of the telephone interviews showed that student participation in activities is also affected by: • Limitations of time • Level of participation by others • Whether the activity is relevant to their work • Their preferred method of working and pattern of activity • Whether the activity is assessed

9. Time limitations • Competing demands on student time • “I’ve used the first [forum] but I didn’t have time to really input any depth into them. …” [Student C-4]. • Pressure of work • “… just at work, paid employment the work there seems to have got more and more, so ‘yeah’ lack of time” [Student C-2]. • Pace of course • “I didn’t realise until quite a lot later about that discussion forum, so by the time I’d gone to look at it, it was past the point in the study calendar” [Student C-5].

10. Participation by others • First Class is useful for some: • “First it makes you feel less lonely so to speak … and second thing, well many students have the same questions, the same doubts I had, so it was very useful to browse the conference and see what the answers to these doubts were” [Student C-3]. • But not for others: • “To be honest I didn’t find it that useful because it wasn’t very active” [Student C-5].

11. Relevance to work • Work may motivate participation: • “Well I think it was the Misuse case one ….I was involved in a small web-based project before so we had to gather some requirements, and it might happen again in the future so was definitely relevant” [Student C-3]. • Or not: • “Had it been something that I was really, really, really interested in, for example, I don’t know Homer or something like that, then I would have made the time to do it for personal interest” [Student C-1].

12. Patterns of activity (1) • An hour may be easy to find: • “… It would be much better to have an hour’s worth of computer activities as opposed to just those little fleeting visits on the computer, so probably an hour’s worth at a time” [Student C-1: She said that she logged on once a fortnight, for between 15 and 45 minutes at a time]. • Or not: • I found [the seminars on DVD] quite long. I think they’re about an hour long, and that’s quite a chunk of time for me to find” [Student C-6: she did the quizzes at work in the lunch hour].

13. Patterns of activity (2)

14. Optional or assessed • Assess discussion forums … • “Well if it was to be assessed, I’d contribute to it…. In M883 it wasn’t assessed so I wasn’t bothered…. So if it was assessed, I’d get on a bit quicker” [Student C-6]. • But not the quizzes … • “I found the quizzes actually quite a useful thing to do repeatedly, so I thought they were quite a useful tool like that, and I thought if we were ever getting assessed on our answers then they’d be a bit more nerve racking, and it would completely change the way you looked at them” [Student C-5].

15. Conclusions • Consider how discussion forums are structured. Lack of time makes it difficult for students to participate in collaborative activities. Lack of participation discourages those who do have time from contributing. • Redesign course web pages to reduce pressure on students. • Provide a structure for online collaboration that will accommodate different modes of working. • Be selective in your use of assessment. Assessment encourages students to take part in activities. However, assessing an activity that they do willingly on their own may constrain the way that they use it.