Enhancing Concept Comprehension in a Web-based Course Using a Framework Integrating the Learning Cycle and the Variation Theory

摘要

Concept comprehension is an important foundation for more complex thoughts. To enhance concept comprehension, classroom teachers have been using instructional strategies and specific course designs, which have been proven effective.It initiates a hypothesis that integrating instructional strategies in the course design of an e-learning system may improve the effectiveness of concept comprehension. This paper designs a framework that integrates the learning cycle and the variation theory in the course design of a web-based e-learning system to prove the hypothesis.A quasiexperimental design with pre-tests and post-tests is employed to test whether the framework is feasibleand effective. Two types of web-based courses, based on a science textbook of the primary school, are designed for the experiments: a course designed without any instructional strategy and the other course designed using the framework in additionally. The experiment results show average scores on comprehension of course concepts of the experimental group, using the course designed with the framework, is significantly hig her than that of the control group, using the course designed without any instructional strategy. This confirms that the coherent, explicit and systematic framework is feasible for designing e-learning courses for effectively enhancing concept comprehension and the evidence to prove the hypothesis.