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Abstract The average score
increased by more than 100% (p<0.0001). The enjoyment rating was >
90%. Score improvement did not correlate with computer expertise, attitude
toward computers, age or enjoyment of the programme. The programme is
freely available on the web and may be viewed at the University of Dundee
Obstetrics and Gynecology Web site. 1. Introduction Our aims were
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![]() Figure 1. Protocol. All students were tested on Day 1, and then each half of the class was tested after administration of the CAL. |
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![]() Previous experience had shown us that students dislike doing badly in pre-tests, so it was made clear to them that we were evaluating the teaching and not the students (Draper et al. 1994). Barnes (1999) argues that students are more comfortable when communicating anonymously with staff. For these reasons, the students were not asked to identify themselves on the questionnaires, except by date of birth and city of birth so that we could match pre-test and post-test questionnaires. The students were post-tested in four batches over two days according to the protocol shown below in Figure 1. Two days of CAL sessions were scheduled the day after the pre-test, with two groups being taught on each of the two days. The group that was taught on the second day had an additional tutorial on the topic of CTG (cardiotocography) interpretation. Tutorial sessions were used to determine if teaching by an additional method could increase the knowledge gain. All students had a timetabled CAL session in the computer suite where 40 computers were set up. Two two-hour sessions were run on each day with three tutors in attendance: one clinician, one reproductive biochemist and one IT support person. Problems were referred to the appropriate person. (Some students who did not have accounts set up experienced logging in problems.) There were two programmes for the students to work through. The CTG programme was used last and was the only one tested in this study. |
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![]() Figure 2. Sample CTG. This is an example of the cardiotocographs presented to the students for interpretation in their pre-test and post-test. |
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![]() ![]() 2.5 Statistical
Analysis |
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![]() ![]() 3. Results |
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![]() Table 1. Proportion of class completing questionnaires. |
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![]() ![]() 3.2 Knowledge
Gain |
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![]() Figure 3. Knowledge Gain. The students were tested before and after being taught by the CAL. Results shown are the medians of their marks out of 24. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval. Numbers of students are shown in brackets. |
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![]() Figure 4. Comparison of Gain and PI with and without a tutorial. When the pre-test score is compared with the post-test score, the improvement is represented either as the gain (percentage increase) or the % PI (percentage actual increase divided by possible increase). The data represents the median values for each group with the numbers in each group shown in brackets. The gain increased significantly for those students given a tutorial (P=0.045 Mann Whitney test). |
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![]() ![]() 3.2.1 Factors
Contributing to Knowledge Gain The correlation matrix for %PI and enjoyment, age of students, expertise of students or attitude of students showed a significant relationship between age of students and expertise and attitude to computers and expertise (Table 3). No other factors were significant. The correlation of expertise and attitude was highly significant (F=104.9 p>F=0.0001). The negative correlation of age and expertise was very significant (F=12.3 p>F=0.001). Although enjoyment increased with age, the relationship was not significant. |
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![]() Table 2. Multiple regression analysis for %PI and enjoyment, age, expertise and attitude. |
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![]() Table 3. Correlation matrix for different factors examined. |
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![]() ![]() 3.2.2 Attitude
Measurement
Results are shown in Figure 5. Results from this response and others were compared to previous years' (Figure 6). There was an increase in enthusiasm for the CAL and also the level of confidence with computers. There was a small decrease in the number of students with a poor attitude towards computers. Students were asked to rate our CAL against other CAL programmes used in their undergraduate studies. Of 87 students who answered the question, 83% considered the Obstetrics and Gynaecology CAL to be better or much better. The response rate was lower than for some other questions as some of the students claimed not to have used CAL before. |
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![]() Figure 5. Enjoyment of Programme. Students were asked to rate their enjoyment of the programme on a scale of 1-5 where 5 was the highest rating. The figure shows the percentage response in each group (n=105). |
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![]() Figure 6. Trends over Three Years. The results of the third year of teaching were compared with previous years. The data shown represent the percentage of the total number of students in each group. |
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![]() ![]() 4. Discussion While CAL is effective in teaching students to manage their own learning, it is not entirely without drawbacks. Most CAL available in Dundee is text-based, unpopular with students and available for approximately half of the student modules. A major factor in developing more appealing CAL is cost; development time ascends Bloom's taxonomy as complexity increases (DLRN, 2000), and a major component of cost is staff time (Brahler et al., 1999). The CAL presented in this paper proved a very useful manager of student learning. We found that it was an effective and enjoyable teaching tool for staff and students (Figures 3 and 5). Knowledge gain was independent of the factors investigated. There was no significant relationship between knowledge gain and enjoyment of the programme, the age of the student, the computer expertise of the student or the attitude of the student. |
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![]() ![]() 4.1 Problems
Encountered in the Study a) Good teaching must
improve knowledge according to its aims. |
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![]() ![]() 4.1.2 Problems
with Performing the Study on Real Students |
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![]() ![]() 4.1.3 Modifications
Based on Prior Problems and Feedback Recently, state of the art computing equipment was bought for the medical school and we were able to make use of high quality graphics and sound and a reliable high-speed network. Because the software is self-explanatory, the students asked few questions. Thus, in the most recent teaching session, the staff found they were able to relax more and generally found little to do during the CAL sessions other than supervise the students' completion of the questionnaires and chat with the students about content after the questionnaires had been completed. We felt that we were finally seeing the rewards from our long hours of preparation. |
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![]() ![]() 4.1.4 Problems
with Questionnaire Returns |
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![]() ![]() 4.2 Comment
on CAL's Reception It was interesting that additional teaching on CTG interpretation, as part of a session on labour management, improved the score as measured by the gain. However, the improvement was small (Figure 4) compared to the improvement from the CAL. We conclude that some students benefit from an additional tutorial. The subgroup that benefited has been identified as the midwifery students (Wilson and Mires 2000). Although significant, the small gain is probably not efficient in terms of effort required by the teaching staff. Approximately 65% of the students considered themselves above average with respect to computer expertise, which contrasts with around 40% for previous years (Figure 6). In a comparable study of dental students in Dundee, the highest level of confidence in a variety of computer-based tasks was 37% (Chadwick, 1997). The improvement noted in this study may relate to increased expectation of computer use by Medical School staff. In response to student feedback, we have been improving our CAL and the facilities for using it. This probably accounts for the observed trend in increasing enthusiasm for the programmes (Figure 6). It is worrying that a high proportion of the students dislike computers. As attendance at the CAL sessions was not compulsory, it is possible that many of those who stayed away also dislike computers. However, we feel that the CTG CAL users overcame computer phobia in that out of six students who said they hated computers, four gave their enjoyment rating the highest level and the other two gave it the second highest rating. When asked to compare the CAL with other packages they had used, most students rated the tutorial highly (Figure 7). When constructing the package, we tried hard to make it interesting but the exact analysis of the factors contributing to its success was not addressed and will be the subject of a further study. In conclusion, after two years of trials, we now feel the CAL is fulfilling its promise as students demonstrate significant learning increments and staff and students enjoy the teaching. The student response in this study was not related to age or computer expertise. |
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![]() Figure 7. CAL comparison. Students rating of the CTG CAL compared to other programmes they had used. |
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![]() ![]() 5. References Barnes D.J. (1999) Public forum Help seeking: the impact of providing anonymity on student help seeking behaviour. Proceedings of Computer-Based Learning in Science Conference. The Netherlands, July. http://www.cblis99.freeuk.com/abstract.htm#A3 Brahler C.J., Peterson N.S., Johnson E.C. (1999) Developing on-line learning materials for higher education: an overview of current issues. Educational Technology and Society 2:1-8. http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/vol_2_99/jayne_brahler.html Carter D.S.G. (1997) New Generation Instructional Information Technology and the Management of Teaching and Learning Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference. (September 11-14 1997: University of York) Candy, P. C., Crebert G. O’Leary (1994) Developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education. Canberra, Australia: national Board of Employment, Education and Training, Australian Government Publishing Service. Chadwick R.G. (1997) Basic IT skills of dental undergraduates: a case for supplementary tuition at University. Medical Teacher 19:148-149. Clark R.E. (1985) Confounding in educational computing research. Journal of Educational Computing Research 1:137-148. *Dearing R. (1997) National Committee of enquiry into higher education. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/help.htm Dewhurst D.G. Hardcastle J., Hardcastle P. T., Stuart E. (1994) Comparison of a computer simulation programme and a traditional laboratory practical class for teaching the principles of intestinal absorption. Am J Physiol 267:S95-S104. DLRN (Distance Learning resource Guide) 2000 Chapter 4, Bloom’s taxonomy. http://www.dlrn.org/library/dl/guide4.html Draper S.W. (1998) Prospects for summative evaluation. Association for Learning Technology Journal 5:33-39. Draper S.W., Brown M.I., Henderson F.P., McAteer E., Smith E.D. and Watt H.D. (1994) Observing and Measuring the Performance of Educational Technology. TLTP programme project. University of Glasgow. Gagne R.M. (1985) The Conditions of learning (4th Ed.), New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. *Gunn C. and Maxwell L. (1996) CAL in human anatomy. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 12 :205-15. *Hull M., Joyce D., Turner G., Wardle P. (1997) Undergraduate Obstetrics and Gynaecology (3rd Edition) Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0 7506 1351 3. Porritt N. (1997) Managing to learn with technology. Active Learning 7:17-23. Rothkopf E.Z. and Kaplan R. (1974) Instructional objectives to learners: effects of passage length and amount of objective-relevant content. Journal of Educational Psychology 4:448-456. Wilson T., Mires G.J. (1998) Teacher versus the computer for instruction: a study. British Journal of Midwifery 6:655-658. Wilson T., Mires G.J. (2000) A comparison of performance by medical and midwifery students in multiprofessional teaching. Medical Education 34:744-746. |
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