Step 7. Get post-use feedback: After software is purchased and used with students, it is important for the teacher to determine the conformance or discrepancy between all of the
2.12 Some Empirical Research On WebQuests
A first relevant study on the learning impact of WebQuests according to Sergers, Droop
& Verhoeven (2010),was performed by Milson (2001). In a qualitative case study, 23 6th graders did a WebQuest on Ancient Egypt. It was noted that, even though the WebQuest
provided the relevant Internet links, children were still inclined to search for answers themselves via Internet search engines, thinking this would be the easier way to find an answer to a
question, since in some engines; one can type in an entire question. Milson was optimistic (though with reservations) at the end of the study, because teachers can guide the children to show behavior that is asked for in a WebQuest. This is clarified by stating that the teacher in this study made sure the children indeed read all questions and web pages and engaged them in higher level thinking.
King (2003) performed the first study on WebQuests with a more experimental design.
An experimental group (n=30) and a control group (n=30) of students in teacher education were divided in groups of 5 to 6 persons. Their assignment was to construct a WebQuest for children in grade 6. The experimental group had an extra day to visit the group the WebQuest was designed for and instruct them on the use of the WebQuest. Before and after the assignment, the expectations of the students about the effectiveness of computer-based instruction were
measured with a questionnaire. It turned out that the expectations of the experimental group remained the same, whereas the control group had higher expectations in the end. Working with the children thus diminished the expectations. However, students in the experimental group did design a better WebQuest according to the researchers. Knowing the focus group thus leads to the design of better material. Stinson (2003) emphasized the same thing in her article on experiences of making WebQuests by students in teacher education.
MacGregor and Lou (2004) added something to the traditional WebQuest. They
compared two groups of fifth graders (n=26 in each class) who did a WebQuest on endangered species. One of the groups received additional support in the form of a concept map that needed
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to be filled with information they found on the Internet. This group showed the highest learning gains; giving this extra form of structure proved to be successful.
Another qualitative study was conducted by Wagman (2005), who gave a very thorough description on the implementation of a WebQuest in a high school in a Latin course. Forty-six pupils, about 15 years of age, took part in this project. They were motivated and showed learning gains in the course of the project. Unfortunately, no control group was enrolled. Wagman
observed that children with weak reading skills had difficulties in going through the amounts of text. In interviews, the pupils indicated that they would prefer a combination of learning by own experiences and by teacher guidance.
Perkin and McKnight (2005) in their study to determine the attitude of teachers to WebQuests as a method of teaching made use of 882 participants in a state instructional technology conference who were primarily K-12 teachers, but also included higher education faculty, district-level administrators, and technology vendors . The respondents commented that WebQuests are an effective way to have their students involved with technology. Web resources are far more numerous than those available through other media. WebQuests allow both teachers and students to learn by a method that is more effective, engaging, and meaningful. One teacher even commented that he/she had students create the WebQuests.
In his study,‖ using WebQuests to support learning with technology in higher education‖
Hassanien (2006) made use of 68 students in the WebQuest evaluation. Most of the students (96 percent) found the webquest activity stimulating (66 percent strongly agreed, 29 percent agreed) for their academic progress. It is worth mentioning that none of the students answered ‗not important‘ at the other end of the scale. Moreover, most students agreed (62 percent strongly agreed and 35 percent agreed) that the activity sessions were relevant and useful. Along the same lines, all students agreed that the WebQuest tasks related well to the intended learning outcomes for the module. Similarly, the majority (88 percent) agreed that suitable learning materials were made available for the activity. Although 74 percent of the students agreed that the activity was well organized, interestingly 21 percent were uncertain regarding that point. This might have been attributed to their unfamiliarity with such types of internet activities. Similarly, the majority of the students agreed (82 percent) that they had sufficient opportunity to get help and advice on their academic progress while 18 percent were uncertain or disagreed with the same statement.
This might be attributed to the lack of time, as mentioned before, and/or their poor knowledge of technology.
Gaskill, McNulty, and Brooks (2006), compared the use of WebQuests to conventional instruction in two intervention studies. In the first study, WebQuest and conventional
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instruction conditions in the study of science were compared in a high school history setting and the conventional instruction condition was found to produce higher learning gains than the WebQuest condition. In the second study, university students in a WebQuest condition were found to gain just as much knowledge as university students in a conventional instruction condition. Differences between the conventional instruction conditions in the two studies may, however, explain the discrepant results. In the conventional intervention in the first study, for example, a movie was shown, a very experienced teacher told stories and there were group discussions. In the WebQuest condition, the children worked individually at their computer and there were no interactions
In a multiple case study, Kanuka, Rourke, and Laflamme (2007) examined five different communication methods, which included the use of WebQuests. The participants were
university students, and it was found that in both the WebQuest and debate methods of communication, the students posted more messages, reflecting the highest level of cognitive involvement. Unfortunately, the learning gains demonstrated by the students were not assessed.
Allan and Street (2007) studied the use of a WebQuest in 87 university students by using a questionnaire. Sixty percent of them believed the WebQuest indeed promoted higher order thinking, while 40% felt their learning was at a lower-order level. The authors drew attention to the work of Young and Wilson (2002) who proposed to add two stages to the WebQuest, based on the theory of anchored instruction (Bransford, Sherwood, Hasselbring, Kinzer, and Williams, 1990). In anchored instruction, a common knowledge base is introduced and discussed in class, e.g. a movie that helps getting children intrinsically motivated. Then, the learner is invited to help solve a ‗real world‘ problem. Several studies proved the effectiveness of this principle, e.g.
Kinzer, Gabella, and Rieth (1994), and Glaser, Rieth, Kinzer, Prestidge, and Peters (1999). An informal review by Ruzic and O‘Connell (2003) found in general positive effects of anchored instruction, especially for children with learning problems.
In 2008, Halat carried out a study on the effects of designing WebQuests on the motivation of pre-service elementary school teachers. There were a total of 202 pre-service elementary school teachers, 125 in a treatment group and 77 in a control group. The study documented that designing WebQuests had positive influence on the pre-service elementary school teachers‘ motivation towards the mathematics course.
In 2009, Segers and Verhoeven compared learning gains of 229 6th graders after doing a WebQuest on Ancient Rome in either a condition in which the Internet sources were provided or a condition in which they had to ‗Google‘ to find answers to the questions in the WebQuest or their own questions. It turned out that girls had similar learning gains in both conditions, but that boys only showed significant learning gains in the WebQuest with Internet sources condition.
51 2.13 Attitude to Computer Use
Gordon Allport defined the concept of attitude in general as follows: "An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related" (Allport 1935). In other words, attitude is determined by experience and impacts upon the individual‘s behaviour. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) defined attitude as ―a learned
predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object‖. They are relatively less stable than personality traits and can be changed both across time and across situations in virtue of individual‘s interaction with the
environment([Robinson, Simpson, Huefner, and Hunt, 1991). Since attitudes are learnt, they are mouldable i.e. they change with experience of the stimulus objects and with social rules or institutions (Binder and Niederle, 2007).
According to Whitrow (1999) and Adebowale, Adediwura, and Bada (2009), related attitudes influence students‘ desire to use computers, their desire to enroll in computer-related subjects and courses, and their choice of career path. Students‘ computer-computer-related attitudes are also directly related to their prior experiences and use of computers (Levine & Donitsa-Schmidt, 1997). Positive attitudes enhance the learning process (Shneiderman 1980), specifically the motivation to learn and the ability to retain information in a given situation (Jawahar &
Elango 2001). A negative attitude may lead to computer resistance (Sheiderman 1980), a phenomenon that can be found among experienced as well as inexperienced users (Negron 1995). A person‘s attitude towards computers and related technology could determine his/her performance with the technology and the satisfaction he/she draws from the experience.
The success of any initiatives to implement technology in an educational program depends strongly upon the support and attitudes of teachers involved. It has been suggested that if teachers believed or perceived proposed computer programs as fulfilling neither their own or their students‘ needs, they are not likely to attempt to introduce technology into their teaching and learning. Among the factors that affect the successful use of computers in the classroom are teachers‘ attitudes towards computers (Huang & Liaw, 2005). Attitude, in turn, constitutes various dimensions. Some examples of these are perceived usefulness, computer confidence (Rovai & Childress, 2002), training (Tsitouridou & Vryzas, 2003), gender (Sadik, 2006), knowledge about computers (Yuen, Law & Chan, 1999), anxiety, confidence, and liking (Yildirim, 2000).
In many developed countries, nearly all schools are equipped with the infrastructure to conduct ICT mediated teaching and learning. Positive teacher attitudes towards computing are
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critical if computers are to be effectively integrated into the school curriculum. A major reason for studying teachers‘ attitude towards computer use is that it is a major predictor for future computer use in the classroom (Myers & Halpin, 2002). Khine (2001) studied 184 pre-service teachers and found a significant relationship between computer attitude and its use in the institution. This finding was corroborated by Yuen and Ma (2001) who, using the Chinese Computer Attitude Scale for Teachers (CAST), found that 216 secondary teachers in Hong Kong had reported the instructional use of computers and their results revealed that affective attitudes, general usefulness, behavioural control, and pedagogical use to be significant in determining the use of ICT. Kumar and Kumar (2003) reported that most teachers
believe that the amount of computer experience has a positive effect on attitude towards computers. Jackson, Ervin, Gardner and Schmitt (2001) indicated that female users, compared with males, are more inclined to hold negative reactions to computers and such differences may have resulted in the different ways of using computers.
In achieving excellence in schools according to Toe (2008), it is important to ensure that teachers are able to integrate technology into the curriculum. As such, the groundwork must be laid at the trainee or pre-service teacher‘s level. To do otherwise is to produce future teachers with underdeveloped skills in the use of technology. In the course of their training, pre-service teachers should be provided with the tools and experiences that will be useful for the regular activities in their future job: classroom instruction, research, and problem solving. Using technology enables pre-service teachers to arrange their environment and adjust their
instructional strategies (Zhang & Espinosa, 1997). On the part of teacher educators, there is a need to understand the dimensions that influence pre-service teachers‘ attitudes towards
computers as a means for effective development of teacher training curriculum that will prepare teachers to face the challenges in the information age (Fisher, 2000).