A First-order Action Research Study to Uncover Students' Conceptual Gaps in an Online Statistics Course using Extended Matching Questions
30th International Conference on Computers in Education Conference, ICCE 2022
; 1:720-729, 2022.
Article
in English
| Scopus | ID: covidwho-2283507
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced institutions worldwide to accelerate their practices on digital transformation, especially in the use of Online Learning. The rapid pace of this transition has forced instructors also to adapt quickly to the online instructional design and in turn reduced opportunities of systematic action research within such a setting. In this paper, we present the action research study by an online instructor to tackle the problem of understanding conceptual gaps among learners. The instructor adapted an existing solution widely used in medical learning, called extended matching items, to design 'Extended Matching Question (EMQ)' for large scale online students (N=1525) of an introductory Statistics course. The instructor modified the structure of this assessment by allowing learners to first identify the concepts involved to solve a particular question and then use those concepts to reach the final numeric answer in the topic 'Permutations and Combinations'. Comparisons of this assessment were made with regular assessments (multiple choice or numerical answers) on the efficacy to make students apply their conceptual understanding for solving the problems. The analysis also enabled the instructor to identify the exact conceptual points where the students lag and showed strong association between identification of concepts and getting the final numeric answer correct. In addition, there was a significant increase in the average score of the test takers in the EMQ assessment compared to that of regular assessment. The study also presents pointers to universities involved in hybrid learning regarding the need for setting up research-practice partnerships within their institutions to tackle their own problems of practice. © 30th International Conference on Computers in Education Conference, ICCE 2022 - Proceedings.
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Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
Scopus
Type of study:
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Language:
English
Journal:
30th International Conference on Computers in Education Conference, ICCE 2022
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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