Effectieve kenmerken van een digitaal biologie practicum in het hoger onderwijs. Analyse van logfiles met een onderwijseffectiviteitmodel

Promotie: mw. I.J. Beetsma, 14.45 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen
Proefschrift: Effectieve kenmerken van een digitaal biologie practicum in het hoger onderwijs. Analyse van logfiles met een onderwijseffectiviteitmodel
Promotor(s): prof.dr. H.P.M. Creemers
Faculteit: Gedrags- en Maatschappijwetenschappen
Contact: Yta Beetsma, tel. 050-363 3645, e-mail: y.beetsma@rug.nl

Effectieve kenmerken van een digitaal biologie practicum in het hoger onderwijs. Analyse van logfiles met een onderwijseffectiviteitmodel

The digital biology practical course has been introduced as a substitute for the use of mandatory use of animals in scientific education and is successfully applied in the field of university education for many years. The substitute consists of a video of the experiments in which animals are used. The educational effectiveness model of Creemers (1994) has been applied to predict the influence of instructional characteristics of the practical course on learning results and time on task. Time spent on the various parts of the practical course and response pattern of students have been collected in so-called logfiles and form the basis of this dissertation. The instructional characteristics in the model have been derived from the effectiveness and efficiency research of courseware and from three learning theories. This dissertation shows that the success of the practical course is determined by the provision of a highly structured learning environment in the form of a tutorial and an open assessment environment in which the student writes online a number of short essays. The length of the last essay is the main predictor of learning results and is in line with previous research results (Page,1994; Kaplan et al., 1998). The design of the practical course is based on the principles of mastery learning (Bloom, 1971): the student gets the opportunity to spend the needed time according to his or her cognitive level. This dissertation shows that this principle applies only to the mandatory parts of the course. The instructional events of Gagne (1970) have served as a guideline in the design of the practical course. This dissertation shows that time spent on the introduction to the course is effective. The main result of this dissertation is an effectiveness model that can be used as a guideline in evaluating and designing courseware. This model can also be applied in understanding the relation between instruction and the underlying cognitive processes.