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