USING WEB-BASED, STREAMING AND INTERACTIVE VIDEO TECHNOLOGIES IN AN ENGINEERING COURSE

摘要

The goal of this project, funded by a grant from the General Electric Fund, is to determine how to use new educational technologies to optimize the learning process for students with different learning styles and personality types. We are currently in the data collection portion of the second year of this three-year project. This paper reports last years' student reactions to the different technologies used to deliver course material. These reactions were both attitudinal (i.e., satisfaction and preference) and performance (i.e., course grade) in nature. In order to achieve the project's goal, student's personality type and learning style were measured using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Learning Style Inventory (LSI). We compared these differing learning styles and personality types to student performance in the same class, Mechanics I (freshman level), taught using three different educational technologies: interactive video class (distance learning between University of Cincinnati and Wright State University), a web-based class and a streaming video class. A standard lecture class was used as the control class for this project. There were 200 students enrolled in the five classes, a relatively small sample for statistical analysis. Several variables were found to have an influential role in student performance. The findings include: 1) Educational technology format had an impact on student performance. Students in web-based classrooms did better than students in traditional or streaming media classrooms; 2) Students' personality types had an impact on their performance. Mental functioning styles of practical thinking performed better than insightful thinking styles. Realistic decision makers performed better than adaptable realistic or innovative thinking types; 3) Learning styles did not have a significant role in student performance across classrooms; 4) Students who found the course to be interesting, engaging, and offering an effective learning environment out-performed students who did not have this opinion. Data acquired in this year and next year will significantly increase confidence in these results.