Garratt-Reed David, Roberts Lynne D, Heritage Brody
School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University Bentley, WA, Australia.
School of Psychology and Exercise Science, Murdoch University Murdoch, WA, Australia.
Front Psychol. 2016 May 10;7:673. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00673. eCollection 2016.
There has been a recent rapid growth in the number of psychology courses offered online through institutions of higher education. The American Psychological Association has highlighted the importance of ensuring the effectiveness of online psychology courses (Halonen et al., 2013). Despite this, there have been inconsistent findings regarding student grades, satisfaction, and retention in online psychology units. Equivalency Theory (Simonson, 1999; Simonson et al., 1999) posits that online and classroom-based learners will attain equivalent learning outcomes when equivalent learning experiences are provided. We present a study of an online introductory psychology unit designed to provide equivalent learning experiences to the pre-existing face-to-face version of the unit. Using quasi-experimental methods, academic performance, student feedback, and retention data from 866 Australian undergraduate psychology students were examined to assess whether the online unit developed to provide equivalent learning experiences produced comparable outcomes to the 'traditional' unit delivered face-to-face. Student grades did not significantly differ between modes of delivery, except for a group-work based assessment where online students performed more poorly. Student satisfaction was generally high in both modes of the unit, with group-work the key source of dissatisfaction in the online unit. The results provide partial support for Equivalency Theory. The group-work based assessment did not provide an equivalent learning experience for students in the online unit highlighting the need for further research to determine effective methods of engaging students in online group activities. Consistent with previous research, retention rates were significantly lower in the online unit, indicating the need to develop effective strategies to increase online retention rates. While this study demonstrates successes in presenting students with an equivalent learning experience, we recommend that future research investigate means of successfully facilitating collaborative group-work assessment, and to explore contributing factors to actual student retention in online units beyond that of non-equivalent learning experiences.
近年来，通过高等教育机构在线提供的心理学课程数量迅速增长。美国心理学会强调了确保在线心理学课程有效性的重要性（哈洛宁等人，2013年）。尽管如此，关于在线心理学课程中学生成绩、满意度和留存率的研究结果并不一致。等效性理论（西蒙森，1999年；西蒙森等人，1999年）认为，当提供等效的学习体验时，在线学习者和课堂学习者将获得等效的学习成果。我们开展了一项针对在线心理学入门课程的研究，该课程旨在为该课程原有的面对面教学版本提供等效的学习体验。我们采用准实验方法，对866名澳大利亚本科心理学专业学生的学业成绩、学生反馈和留存数据进行了研究，以评估为提供等效学习体验而开发的在线课程是否能产生与面对面授课的“传统”课程相当的学习成果。除了一项基于小组作业的评估中在线学生表现较差外，不同授课方式下的学生成绩没有显著差异。该课程的两种授课方式中学生满意度普遍较高，小组作业是在线课程中不满的主要来源。研究结果为等效性理论提供了部分支持。基于小组作业的评估未能为在线课程的学生提供等效的学习体验，这凸显了进一步开展研究以确定让学生有效参与在线小组活动的方法的必要性。与之前的研究一致，在线课程的留存率显著较低，这表明需要制定有效的策略来提高在线课程的留存率。虽然本研究在为学生提供等效学习体验方面取得了成功，但我们建议未来的研究调查成功促进协作式小组作业评估的方法，并探索除了非等效学习体验之外影响在线课程学生实际留存率的因素。
