Research Annotations

Records: 322

Improving College Student Success in Organic Chemistry: Impact of an Online Preparatory Course

APA Citation

Fischer, C., Zhou, N., Rodriguez, F., Warschauer, M., & King, S. (2019). Improving college student success in organic chemistry: Impact of an online preparatory course. Journal of Chemical Education, 96(5), 857-864. doi:10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b01008

Annotation

“Study conducted at a 4-year, public, doctoral granting research university in Southern California. An online three week organic chemistry preparatory class was developed and tested via a quantitative empirical study, students could choose whether or not to participate. The preparatory course was advertised to all students enrolled in the organic chemistry course two weeks prior to the start of the course. Course used a custom ebook, and 16 lecture style video podcasts with accompanying notes, . . . and 17 assignments. Assignment answer sheets were uploaded after the due date along with video podcasts of the instructor going over the answers in detail. Applied logistic regression analysis with robust standard errors to predict student participation in the online prep course. Students who viewed the course were in the ‘treatment group’ students who chose not to view the course were the ‘control group’, propensity score matching was done to address the self selection into either group. Gender (women more likely than men), previous academic preparation, higher high school GPA, and more college units earned predicted enrollment in the prep course, underrepresented student groups were no more or less likely to participate than their majority counterparts. Students who participated in the prep course earned 1/3 of a letter grade better than those in the control group. Underrepresented minority groups participating in the prep course also earned on average 1/3 of a letter grade better than those in the control. Conclusion: Underrepresented minority students were equally as likely to choose to participate in the prep course and performed on average 1/3 of a letter grade better than those in the control, which matched the results of their majority counterparts.
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The History and State of Online Learning

APA Citation

Joksimović, S., Kovanović, V., Skrypnyk, O., Gašević, D., Dawson, S., & Siemens, G. (2015). The history and state of online learning. In G. Siemens, D. Gašević, & S. Dawson (Eds.), Preparing for the digital university: A review of the history and current state of distance, blended, and online learning (pp. 93-131). Boston, MA: Online Learning Consortium. https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/read/preparing-for-digital-university/

Annotation

“This third report in the Online Learning Consortium’s (OLC) document on digital learning focuses on online learning. The report makes a distinction between online learning and distance education, describing online learning as a type of distance education using the Internet where students and instructors do not need to be online simultaneously. The two research questions for this review on online learning are: (1) “What are the main topics emerging from the contemporary literature on online . . . learning?”, and (2) “What is the state of research and practice in online learning, as reflected through meta-studies and systematic literature reviews?” The researchers identified and examined 32 reviews of online learning research that defined online learning in a comparable fashion to the authors’ definition. These reviews consisted primarily of systematic reviews, literature reviews, and meta-analyses. The findings in this report contribute to the development of an online learning model. The researchers note that few reviews addressed online learning adoption at the institutional level, and also note the unclear lines between distance education, blended learning, and online learning in much research. They suggest that these different formats all reflect what they identify as digital learning.
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