Inter-university online courses as possible approach to improve teaching during crisis: a Ukrainian case study
Introducing of inter-university online courses. Analysis of the effectiveness of inter-university online courses as an approach to restoring education for students affected by the war and as a way to maintain the quality of education in small groups.
| Рубрика | Педагогика |
| Вид | статья |
| Язык | английский |
| Дата добавления | 26.07.2023 |
| Размер файла | 211,1 K |
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Collection of attendance statistics
The attendance statistics was provided by the course organization team. During part of the lectures, the students were asked to fill online form with their names and emails used during the registration. Several times during the course student were asked without prior notice to do 10minutes formative tests to assess their knowledge obtained during previous lectures. The number of students answered the test was used to complement the attendance statistics.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Motivation of the students
Traditional university teaching possesses a developed set of methods to motivate students to study and to keep their interest till the end of the course (Kember et al., 2010; Steinmayr et al., 2019). Unlike traditional classroom settings at their own universities, interuniversity online courses require students to be more self-directed and disciplined in their approach to learning (Silenko & Kruk, 2022). Without motivation, students not only may struggle to engage with course material and complete assignments, but also even would not register to such a course for the first place. During the crisis times students encounter very variable living conditions that range from almost normal to really hard. Universities sometimes have no objective approaches to evaluate the personal situation of the students, especially in the case of cities close to the war zone or students who had to leave their cities due to the war. Therefore, we must admit that success of any new methodology that gives students more choice, including interuniversity online courses, during the crisis would mostly rely on the student motivation (Hartnett, 2016). Moreover, we must consider it in two aspects: (i) motivation of the students to enroll into such courses and (ii) motivation go through the whole course, that we would call 'study motivation' to avoid confusion. From the organizational point of view, it is more important to properly evaluate the study motivation, as the course efficacy depends on the number of students that successfully finished the course and acquired the required set of knowledge rather than on the number of students enrolled. Any good course requires personal interaction of students and teachers and, therefore, has a limited capacity. The motivation of the students to enroll to the course can be increased by many factors that include ones reflecting real interest of the student (quality of teachers, materials, previous knowledge) but also many factors not directly related to the interest to course (suggestions from university administration, advertisements, scholarships) (Harnett, 2016; Duszenko et al., 2022; Lobos et al., 2022). To maximize the effect of the courses it is very important for the organizers to get mainly self-motivated and interested students who would keep the till the course end and to distinguish them from students with high motivation for enrolment but low motivation to study.
Understanding the correlation between the different motivation parameters would be useful for design of the further selection procedures. The course we used as a case study in this work can serve as a good example for such evaluation. The course started in September 2022 and was advertised only three weeks before the registration. However, the number of students registered (330 applications) was much large than the planned course capacity (90 students). The organizers selected the main group of students based on the planned capacity and allowed other students to visit lectures but not seminars and pass exam. Out of ~240 potential 'free listeners' only 81 student agreed with the conditions (Fig 1a). Most likely such decrease of the interest was a result of combination of three factors: (i) the absence of full access to the course (namely practical work and personal contact with teachers), (ii) absence of the clear communication with course organizers about their status, and possibility to be evaluated and obtain course certificates, (iii) absence of possibility to obtain scholarship. The practical conclusion from this part of the analysis is that when organizing such inter-university courses, it is important (i) to be prepared to deal with number of applications significantly exceeding the course capacity (ii) have pre-arranged policies of course capacity extension, enrolling of students in additional groups or as free listeners (iii) clearly communicate to students those policies if they are proposed to join the course in additional group, namely regarding course exams and types of certificates.
The evaluate the role of scholarship on the student motivation not only to enroll for the course but also to study we compared the performance of students with and without scholarships at the exam. 50 out of 90 students of the main group were entitled to significant scholarships based on social reasons (mainly to students from regions strongly affected by the war) with the only condition that they have to successfully accomplish the course. However, only 70% of students entitled to scholarships managed to pass the exam, 18% failed, and 12% of them even did not show up for it (Fig. 1b). These numbers are comparable with the numbers for students without scholarships (73%, 10%, 22%, respectively). It allows us to conclude that the scholarships did not played a significant role in the motivation of the students to study during the course, even though it likely strongly increase the motivation to enroll for it. We must admit that our conclusion could be biased by the fact that the course was taught at very specific conditions during war time and students with scholarships that are in average from more affected cities were in less suitable study conditions.
Fig. 1 (A) Comparison of number of students registered to the course, started to attend the course lectures (either as free listeners or the main group), fully subscribed to the course (main group), continued till the end exam, and successfully passed exam. (B) Influence of the scholarship on the performance of the students
To better understand what was the motivation to register to the course among the students who were motivated to finish it, we analyzed an anonymous survey among the students who were at the final course exam. In one of the questions the students were asked what outcome they expected from the course. They were provided with following options (in Ukrainian) and were able to check all relevant versions:
- Obtaining useful knowledge ("knowledge")
- Widening of my scope in the field of life sciences and the scientific work ("better understanding the field")
- Obtaining new contacts ("contacts")
- Course certificate will help during the selection procedure for master program outside Ukraine ("Certificate: Master abroad")
- Course certificate will help during the selection procedure for master program in Ukraine ("Certificate: Master Ukraine")
- Course certificate will help to register to summer schools and in other competitive applications ("Certificate: Other").
Almost all students answered that one of their motivations was to obtain and deepen their knowledge in biological disciplines and to better understand the field of life sciences (Fig. 2). About half of the students believe that the course certificate would help them during the selection procedure for a master program abroad and or in Ukraine. Only one third was expecting that the course certificate will help them in other competitive application. Very likely, most of the course students are not yet familiar with the possibilities of application for international student support programs and summer schools and this should be accounted in the planning of further student courses.
Fig. 2 Motivation of students to register to the course
The importance of personal contacts with teachers and students outside their own universities was underestimated by most of the students as only 37% of stated it. Based on the survey results we can conclude that proper description of the course certificate and possibilities that it opens can potentially increase the fraction of student highly motivated to finish the course among the applicants. Very likely, it would be important to design certificates in the way that will simplify the interaction between student and university where it would present it, namely hours, etc.
For the success of the course it is important not only to enroll highly motivated students, but to retain their motivation during the course also. Motivation can come from various sources, such as personal interest in the subject matter, a desire to acquire new skills or knowledge, or external factors such as career goals or a desire to meet academic requirements. When students are motivated, they are more likely to set achievable goals, manage their time effectively, and persist through challenges
To support student motivation in online courses, instructors can provide clear expectations and goals, create interactive and engaging course content, offer regular feedback and support, and foster a sense of community through online discussions and group work (Duszenko et al., 2022; Mendoza et al., 2023). Students can also take proactive steps in communicating with teachers to ask for clarification of unclear points and participate in discussions, expressing their own point of view on a particular topic or seeking a solution to a particular issue. It is also important for the teacher to get feedback from students to understand how accessible and interesting the material is. The most direct indication of the changes of the students' motivation during the course is the attendance statistics.
Attendance statistics
To estimate how students, accept the course and how their motivation was changing with time, we analyzed the lecture attendance statistics. The course was planned for 90 students. However, 81 more students were registered in additional group that was attending only lectures but had right to pass the exam ad to get certificate with amount of credits corresponding to lecture hours. This made the course audience significantly heterogeneous by the study experience and motivation. The attendance was monitored either informally (by number of people connected to the lecture) or by online form which each student had to fill during the lecture.
During the first lectures, the attendance was quite high, reaching about 150 students, that is about 85-90% of the total number of people in the main and additional groups. However, the attendance decreased to the level of 90±10 students within first two week s that roughly corresponds to the number of students in the main group (Fig. 3). This number remained approximately constant for 5 weeks, till middle of October 2022. After that, many Ukrainian cities started to encounter power and internet outages that strongly decreased the attendance, but as it this change was not related to the course performance or student motivation, it would not be discussed here.
The rapid decrease of the course attendance to some level that remained stable for prolonged period of time is likely the signature of missed expectations. First of all, each student when enrolling to the course was expecting particular level of the course and ones that find the course too simple or too hard just stopped the attendance. Second, the course was quite intense, about 16 hours a week during the first weeks, that could be beyond the expectation of many students, moreover the exact course schedule was announced only after the start of the curse that could also contribute to the misconception of the ability of students to attend the course.
Fig 3 (A) Dynamics of the lecture attendance by students. Data from online registration system (black) and 5-point rolling average. Blue and green dashed lines represent the number of students fully enrolled in the course and number of students that successfully passed the exam, respectively
However, the fact that the level at which the attendance stabilized, 90±10 students corresponds to the number of students in the main group attending not only the lectures but also practical classes points at the importance of this factor. Very likely, many students who were attending only lectures did not get sufficient feedback and sufficient involvement in the course that make them quit earlier.
To correlate the attendance statistics with the students' performance during exam, we analyzed the responses of the students who completed the course to the survey. Among them about 48% stated that they visited more than 75% of classes, and 36% that they visited 50-75% of classes. However, these numbers include also the period of extensive electricity cutoffs. When students were asked specifically about the attendance before that period, 83% of them stated that they visited more than three quarters of the classes.
To sum up, our data show that involvement of students in practical classes plays an important role in improving the attendance and motivation of students during online courses and, if possible, small group practical classes and seminars should be involved in online course program. Additional measures that can be used to improve course attendance is better informing students about the time-table of the course and its requirements level during the registration stage.
Assessment standards
Assessment standards can significantly differ between universities and even between professors within the same university. It is not really a problem for traditional studies when all differences are already common and judged by students and society as 'strong and weak university', 'diploma value' etc. (Ajjawi et al., 2021). Meanwhile for online interuniversity courses it could be a problem as different professors.
During this course we had the same group of students attending two lectures given by two teachers that had the possibility to set up the exam in the same form (multiple choice test); however, the resulted mark distribution was quite different as it is shown in Fig. 4. It is very likely that this is not due to the difference in real students' performance but due to different assessment approach. However, we cannot rule out the complexity of the course material and the possibility that students may have already taken a certain course, at least in part. Taken this into account, to avoid discrepancies in the assessment careful exam organization is needed.
Fig. 4 Distribution by grades according to the final assessment of the same students on the example of two courses, biophysics and molecular biology
Course recognition stories
According to the terms of the course, the partner universities agreed to recognize the certificates of completion and transfer the students' grades from the respective courses. Each course in the integrated course had a certain number of hours. Although the exam was integrated, students received a grade in each discipline (the grade was presented as a percentage of correct answers). However, in practice, the transfer of grades proved to be a problem.
The first problem is that the number of credits assigned to the course did not match. The interuniversity online course provided credits only for classes attended and did not provide additional credits for independent work, as is required by university curricula. In practice, it looks like this: at the university, the course has 90 hours (3 credits), of which only 30 hours are classroom, and the rest is independent work. Our inter-university course also had 30 classroom hours, but without additional independent work hours, so it had only 1 credit. Secondly, the name of the course may not have been exactly the same as the name of the same course at the partner university. Thirdly, teachers who teach a similar course at the partner university refuse to recognize the results of the inter-university online course due to the lack of a real recognition mechanism. The solution to this problem may be as follows. According to the Law of Ukraine on Higher Education, students are entitled to 25% of elective courses, including those from the professional training cycle. Therefore, completed inter-university online courses can and should be recommended to universities for crediting credits of the student's free choice. From point of view of the course organization, it is important to pre-arrange recognition of the course at least at some universities and agree with format of the course certificate, number or credits and the name of disciplines.
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