EDUC 815
ARTICLE CRITIQUE WORKSHEET
Group number:
Members:
Instructions: After reviewing the website article in the assigned module/week’s Reading &
Study folder, you will complete this assignment in 2 parts: working individually (Part 1) and
working in a small group of 3 or 4 members (Part 2). You must submit both portions of the
assignment in order to receive full credit.
Part 1
Complete the provided worksheet on your own by answering the questions listed below with
short answers. You must submit your worksheet through the Group Discussion Board
submission link by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday of the assigned modules/weeks. Each team
member will submit his/her own worksheet as a thread in order to complete Part 2.
Part 2
Review your group member’s worksheets and work together to agree on the best answers for
each question. Once the group has completed the worksheet together, one member of the group
will submit the finalized group worksheet via the SafeAssign link by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday
of the same modules/weeks.
Questions:
1. Correctly reference the article using current APA format.
Rovai, A. P., Wighting, M. J., & Liu, J. (2005). School climate: Sense of
classroom and school communities in online and on-campus higher
education courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6(4), 361374. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/231071527?accountid=12085
2. What is the purpose of the study?
The purpose of the study is to determine if there were differences in sense of
community and perceived learning between university students enrolled in fully
online and fully face-to-face on-campus courses.
3. List the research questions.
a. Are there differences in sense of community and perceived learning between
university students enrolled in fully online and fully face-to-face on-campus
courses among education students?
4. List the hypotheses; then, underline and label the corresponding independent/dependent
variables or predictor/criterion variables. Are there any covariates? If so, name them.
a. H0 -- There are no differences in sense of community and perceived learning
between university students enrolled in fully online and fully face-to-face oncampus courses among education students.
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b. H1 – There are differences in sense of community and perceived learning between
university students enrolled in fully online and fully face-to-face on-campus
courses among education students.
5. Do the questions pose an ethical or moral problem for implementation? Why or why not?
The questions do not pose and ethical or moral problem for implementation.
Students, as a class, tend to be more experimental in nature. Education students,
as a class, tend to be more willing to learn for the sake of learning. As such,
students likely to be questioned in this study would be forthcoming with honest
answers to validate the scale provided. Personal information was appropriately
removed, and students were allowed to remain anonymous.
6. Do the questions or hypotheses measure any theoretical constructs? If so, list them.
The hypothesis implies a theoretical construct that there is no difference in sense
of community and perceived learning between university students enrolled in fully online
and fully fac-to-face on-campus courses among education students.
“The Classroom and School Community Inventory (CSCI; Rovai, Wighting, &
Lucking, 2004) was used to measure classroom community and school community”
(Rovai, Wighting, & Liu, 2005, p. 366).
7. Do the author(s) clearly identify the participants and setting? If so, describe them.
The study clearly identified the participants and setting as follows:
Participants:
279 university students
enrolled in undergraduate and graduate education programs.
The volunteer rate for this study was 83.30%.
The sample consisted of 250 (89.6%) females and 29 (10.4%) males.
A total of 195 (69.9%) participants were Caucasian,
55 (19.7%) were African American,
6 (2.2%) were Asian/Pacific Islander,
4 (1.4%) were Hispanic, and
19 (6.8%) classified themselves as other;
104 (37.3%) were undergraduates and
175 (62.7%) were graduate students.
All undergraduate students were preparing for careers in education
All graduate students were employed in the field of education
the majority working in the K-12 school environment.
8. What research design is used and why?
A quantitative approach was used to allow for statistical analysis of the results.
Multivariate Analysis of Variances (MANOVAs) were used to analyze.
9. What type of sampling method is used?
The present study used a convenience sample of undergraduate and graduate
education courses offered by two universities in an urban area of the state of
Virginia.
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10. What are the names of each instrument used in the study (provide a list)?
Classroom and School Community Inventory
11. Are the instruments valid and reliable? Why or why not?
Rovai, Wighting, and Lucking (2004) provide evidence of both CSCI validity and
reliability. A factor analysis offers empirical support for the notion that students
have multiple psychological senses of community in reference to classroom and
school-wide communities and the presence of two subscales of social community
and learning community as latent dimensions of both the classroom community
and school community constructs. Internal consistency estimates of reliabilities
for the classroom scale and school scale using Cronbach's coefficient alpha were
.84 and .83 respectively. Additionally, internal consistency coefficients for the
social community and learning community subscales of the classroom form were
.90 and .87 respectively, and for the school form the coefficients were .85 and .82
respectively. Stability estimates for each scale using Pearson r correlation
coefficients and a 2-week interval between pretest and posttest measurements was
.91.
12. Do the author(s) give enough detail regarding the procedure so that the study could be
replicated? How or how not?
The present study used a convenience sample of undergraduate and graduate
education courses offered by two universities in an urban area of the state of
Virginia. Students earned three semester hours credit for each course, which was
delivered either face-to-face in an on-campus classroom or fully online using the
Blackboard.comSM e-learning system. This elearning system consists of an
integrated set of productivity, communication, assessment, and content
management tools that allow instructors to design, present, facilitate, and
administer online instruction. Data were collected from participants during the
final 3 weeks of the semester prior to the final course examinations. An online
survey system was used to collect data from online students, and paper copies of
the surveys were completed by on campus participants in their respective
classrooms.
13. What type of statistical analysis is used and why?
Quantitative analysis is used to provide detailed numerical comparisons and
analysis of the results. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVAs) were used
to analyze the data.
14. What are the major conclusions of the study? How do they relate to the hypothesis?
The present study revealed no difference in perceived learning between the online
and on-campus groups – This validates the null hypothesis.
15. Do the author(s) suggest any future studies to resolve ambiguities in the present study or
to answer questions raised by the present study?
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a. increased integration into school social communities should result in greater
institutional commitment and student persistence, given that perceived learning is
held constant between online and on-campus students. Additional research is
needed to confirm this hypothesis.
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