Title: An exploratory investigation of the impact of surprise interviews with former graduates on online students learning in an introductory IT course

Authors: Taowen Le; Jin Zhang; Edward Harris

Addresses: Goddard School of Business and Economics, Weber State University, Layton, UT 84040, USA. ' School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA. ' Goddard School of Business and Economics, Weber State University, Layton, UT 84040, USA

Abstract: This study explored a unique approach to motivating online students in an introductory IT course. The authors conducted and videotaped surprise interviews with former business graduates and offered the recorded interviews to online business students enrolled in an introductory IT course. The authors then compared the academic performances of the students who watched the surprise interviews and those who did not. The study employed a mixed research methodology and found that students who watched the surprise interviews achieved significantly better performance than students who did not in all aspects of learning outcome assessment.

Keywords: e-learning; electronic learning; online learning; motivational impact; surprise interviews; former graduates; online students; introductory courses; business graduates; recorded interviews; business students; academic performance; learning outcomes; learning assessments; higher education; universities; Weber State University; Utah; USA; United States; networks; ICT; information technology; communications technology; internet; world wide web; enterprise management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIEM.2011.045110

International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, 2011 Vol.7 No.4, pp.388 - 400

Received: 29 Mar 2011
Accepted: 14 May 2011
Published online: 25 Apr 2015 *

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