Increasing the self-study effort of higher education engineering students with an online learning platform Online publication date: Sat, 31-Jan-2009
by Seppo Virtanen
International Journal of Knowledge and Learning (IJKL), Vol. 4, No. 6, 2008
Abstract: This article presents a study on motivating engineering students towards more active independent work and higher course effort using an online learning platform, weekly groupwork and weekly progress reporting. In the past five years, the average final grades of the students in a traditionally implemented computer networks and information security lecture course have been decreasing. An experiment on increasing student effort was made in a new information security course, relying on reducing the amount of lectures and moving a corresponding amount of course work into a computer-based learning environment to be performed independently and in a group. The results of the experiment were extremely promising, showing higher student effort and better grades. The experiment was repeated in another new course and the preliminary results also indicate a similar increase in student effort. The conclusion is that similar strategies should also be employed in existing courses and future new courses.
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