Introduction to Psychology:
Northern Arizona University
Fully implemented, 2009
 2000/year foundational, survey-style class
 Traditionally, 8-11 uncoordinated sections/year
 Issues:
 Engagement. 63% study < 2 hours per week
 Student learning and achievement
 Enrollment pressures and cost. $62/student
 Consistency. Non-permanent staff, divergent grade
distributions
 Faculty perception, participation
Background and Overview
 ABOR/Learner-Centered Education program
 PIs: K. Laurie Dickson, Derrick Wirtz
 Supplemental model
 Goals: Promote learning and success, engagement/effort,
consistency, full-time staffing, while reducing cost
 Measures include knowledge assessment, grades, exam performance,
student opinion surveys
 Primary comparison: Fall 2005, 120-student traditional section
 Redesigned course:
 Team taught F2F section with substantial online supplementation
 400 students/section, back to back scheduling, coordination
 GTA team approach with “early intervention specialist”
Redesigned Course Pedagogy
 Web assignments
 4 per semester
 Guided exploration and written reflection on web-based surveys and
other activities
 Pilot research suggested these effectively complement material
 Required, repeatable online quizzes
 Randomly sampled from test bank (Myers Exploring Psychology)
 Student response system
 Full credit for any answer
 10% of course grade
 Email contact with struggling students
Fully Online Component
 Institutional need for fully-online offering
 Cost effectiveness, staffing, and course building were barriers
 Co-designed by experienced former adjunct and M. Miller
 Master content template created collaboratively
 Staffing varies; adjunct during academic year, full-time in other
sessions
For full description and results please see:
Miller, M.D., & Rader, M.E. (2010). Two heads are better than one: Collaborative development
of an online course content template. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 6, 246255.
Results: Grades
•
Redesigned course produces similar pattern as traditionally taught
course. Note increased student effort, pattern associated with D
and F grades.
100
90
80
70
60
A/B
50
F
40
30
20
10
0
Fall 05
Fall 06
Fall 08
Fall 09
But wait…
 Could “non-exam” assignments or other factors have
inflated grades?
 How many students would have failed solely on the basis of
exam scores?
 What about learning?
Results: Exam Scores
 Four versus two exams; otherwise comparable
 Students in redesigned section scored significantly better better (p < .001).
 5.7% difference is about half of one standard deviation
 In redesigned section, 6.5% would have failed on exam scores alone
100
90
80
70
60
Exam Average %
Correct
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fall 05
Fall 09
Results: Learning Assessment
 Both sections made significant gains (p < .001)
 Degree of gain statistically indistinguishable across sections
100
90
80
70
60
Learning Assessment %
Correct Pre-Test
50
Learning Assessment %
Correct Post-Test
40
30
20
10
0
Fall 05
Fall 09
Other Impacts and Findings
 Communication and intervention
 Email: Strategies for routing, managing and preventing
 Positive response to proactive email contact
 Study skills workshops
 Student response system
 Perceptions radically improved from pilot to current version
 Students endorse SRS usefulness, though logistical problems persist
 Students strongly endorsed usefulness of repeatable quizzes
 Department and faculty impacts
 Cost: $62 -> $43
 Team teaching/coordination approach
 90% of teaching done by full-time faculty
For More Information…
 michelle.miller@nau.edu, laurie.dickson@nau.edu
 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michelle-miller/13/410/a73
 http://www.thencat.org/States/AZ/Abstracts/NAU%20Psycholog
y_Abstract.htm
 Miller, M.D., & Rader, M.E. (2010). Two heads are better than one: Collaborative
development of an online course content template. Journal of Online Learning
and Teaching, 6, 246-255.
 Miller, M.D. (2009) What the science of cognition tells us about instructional
technology. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 41, 71-74.