Tbers,

Although this post deals with online education, it does touch on broader
issues of assessment that I thought the TB might be interested in.  As
always, enjoy!! 

Jim Greenberg
 

*********************************************
ABSTRACT:  Rebecca Cox, in her perceptive online article "Online
Education as Institutional Myth: Rituals and Realities at Community
Colleges," concludes that "Without empirical evidence about exactly
how and under what specific conditions online processes facilitate
robust learning, the promises of online education are unlikely to be
realized at the community college." The need for empirical evidence
as to what processes facilitate robust learning (whether online or in
the classroom, and whether at the community or university level) was
recently emphasized in "Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be
Increased?" wherein I wrote: "Instead of measuring pre-to-post test
gains so as to definitively gauge student *learning* in a course,
distance and classroom education researchers. . . . .generally
utilize *low-resolution* measures of students learning, such as
student evaluations of teaching, student self-assessments, and
teacher-made tests and course grades."
*********************************************

Educators may or may not be interested in the perceptive article
"Online Education as Institutional Myth: Rituals and Realities at
Community Colleges"  [Cox (2005)], recently made freely available
online by Teachers College Record <http://www.tcrecord.org/>.

Rebecca Cox wrote [bracketed by lines "CCCCCCCC. . . . .]:

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
Online education has become a central component of the discourse on
higher education. This newest form of distance education is
accompanied by a rich metaphoric language, with terms such as "open
education" and "e-learning." These descriptors hint at the
educational promise of the new digital technologies: open access to
higher education, the development of students' digital literacy
skills, and a more engaging learning experience. Advocates have
touted online education as a means of "delivering" instruction to a
wide range of lifelong learners, "anywhere, anytime," and hail it as
the harbinger of a complete transformation in teaching, learning, and
formal schooling.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This article relies on data from the CCRC's. . . [Community College
Research Center at Teachers College]. . . .  national field study, a
large-scale investigation of 15 community colleges across six states.
Designed as a comparison case study (Yin, 1989), the project explored
changes in the community college landscape, particularly those
effected by state-led accountability demands, the rising demand for
remediation, the emergence of new postsecondary competitors, and
recent developments in Web-based technologies.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONCLUSION
In the final analysis, the myth of online education has exerted a
strong antidemocratizing influence on these community colleges.
Although the college-level actors maintain relative autonomy in
respect to the institutional pressures, constructing high-quality
virtual environments demands a variety of resources and knowledge
largely unavailable within individual community colleges.
Consequently, while the colleges spend efforts making incremental
(albeit necessary) improvements to their online programs, the current
trajectory of online involvement can only exacerbate existing
post-secondary educational inequities. Perhaps the blithe assumptions
about "e-learning" hold true for high-status colleges and more
advantaged post-secondary students. BUT WITHOUT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
ABOUT EXACTLY HOW AND UNDER WHAT SPECIFIC CONDITIONS ONLINE PROCESSES
FACILITATE ROBUST LEARNING, THE PROMISES OF ONLINE EDUCATION ARE
UNLIKELY TO BE REALIZED AT THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE. . . .  [my CAPS]. .
. . Fundamentally, the possibility of a more equitable path of online
development depends upon making the practical realities more
transparent and reducing the disconnect between the myth and the
practices.
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

The need for empirical evidence as to what processes facilitate
robust learning (whether online or in the classroom, and whether at
the community or university level) was recently emphasized in my
IJ-SoTL article "Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be Increased?"
[Hake (2008)]. Therein I wrote [see that article for the references]:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
In my opinion . . .  *direct* gain measurements of higher-order
student learning are far superior to the *indirect* (and therefore in
my view problematic) gauges have been utilized by education
researchers: e.g., end-of-course exams and course grades; Student
Evaluations of Teaching (SET's); Reformed Teaching Observation
Protocol (RTOP) [MacIsaac (2008)]; National Survey Of Student
Engagement [NSSE (2008)]; Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE)
plus CLAss Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE) [Rhem (2007)];
Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) [Seymour et al. (2005)];
and Knowledge Surveys [Nuhfer & Knipp (2003)].
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Except for Walters (1996) & Walters & Reed (1997), direct measurement
of learning gain by pre/post testing has, as far as I know (please
correct me if I'm wrong), not been employed to gauge the
effectiveness of Distance Education. . . . . Instead of measuring
pre-to-post test gains so as to definitively gauge student *learning*
in a course, distance and classroom education researchers, including
those involved in SoTL, generally utilize *low-resolution* measures
of students learning, such as student evaluations of teaching,
student self-assessments, and teacher-made tests and course grades.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>


REFERENCES
Cox, R.D.  2005."Online Education as Institutional Myth: Rituals and
Realities at Community Colleges," Teachers College Record 107(8):
1754-1787; freely online for a short time at
<http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=12095>.

Hake, R.R. 2008. "Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be Increased?"
IJ-SoTL 2(1): January; online at
<http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v2n1/essays_about_sotl/hake/index.htm
>.
The "International Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning"
(IJ-SoTL)  <http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/>  is an open,
peer-reviewed, international electronic journal containing articles,
essays, and discussions about the scholarship of teaching and
learning (SoTL) and its applications in higher/tertiary education
today.

Morrison, J.L. editor. 1997. "Technology Tools for Today's Campuses," online
at
<http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/monograph/CD/>.

Walters, R.F. & N.E. Reed. 1997. Outcome Analysis of Distance
Learning: A Comparison Between Conventional and Independent Study
Instruction, online at
<http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/monograph/CD/>, scroll down and
click on "Walters"; contained in Morrison (1997).

Walters, R.F. 1996. Distance learning: a controlled performance
outcome analysis, IEEE "International Conference on Multi Media
Engineering Education," Melbourne, Australia, pp. 11-16, abstract
online at <http://tinyurl.com/2zxotd>.

Yin, R.K. 2002. "Case study research: Design and methods." Sage, 3rd
edition. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/35bm46>. Note
the "Search Inside" feature.

*************************************************************************
You are subscribed to the POD mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change
your subscription options, or access list archives,  visit
http://listserv.nd.edu/archives/pod.html

For information about the POD Network visit http://podnetwork.org

Hosted by the John A. Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning and the
Office of Information Technologies at the University of Notre Dame.
*************************************************************************

------ End of Forwarded Message