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UBC Theses and Dissertations

On-line education: on the job training with computer conferencing (the virtual education oracle) Guenther, John J.

Abstract

Through the delivery of a building code education module over the internet, the effectiveness of on-line education in a work environment was examined. Building officials served as the expert facilitators and instructors and the students were architects and designers. Guests from an arm of the National Research Council involved in building code issues were also invited to take part. Thirty-nine selected students were placed in two groups (Group I and Group II) controlling for age, work experience, computer skill and knowledge of the building code. Two groups, each with about 20 students were selected to participate in an on-line computer conference. Group I received an on-line curriculum with posttests after each section and Group II received only posttests. Academic achievement comparisons were then made between the two groups. T-tests were used to compare achievement for the two groups of learners, one with an online curriculum and one without an on-line curriculum, but both given the opportunity to conference and answer specific section review or posttest questions. Dependent variables were identified as instructor access, motivation, participation levels, comparisons to the traditional classroom, level and convenience of on-line involvement, virtual classroom overall rating, course rating, instructor rating, interest, ability to synthesize ideas, academic achievement, and group communication. The independent variables were computer attitudes, expectations about the conferencing system, interpersonal sphere of control, terminal access, and curriculum design. Frequencies were compiled and displayed in graph form to portray variables. Comparisons were made using Pearson Correlations. Results indicate that: • the internet can be a valuable tool for student access and knowledge-building exercises, supporting the hypothesis that students who experience group or collaborative learning in the virtual classroom are more likely to judge the outcomes of an on-line course to be superior to the outcomes of traditional classrooms; • students who depend on their own effort rather than "luck" are more likely to regularly and actively participate on-line; • those with high viewed the on-line experience with some trepidation indicating that they would not prefer to take another on-line course; • the curriculum did not affect gains in building code knowledge between curriculum and non-curriculum groups when exposed to a computer conferencing delivery system; • the interface continues to confound students and leads to frustration that can debilitate the learning experience; and • on-the-job learning is constrained by time and work load demands.

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