Abstract:
This study sought to determine the students’ perception of VoiceThread discussion multimedia features’ impact on their learning and examine the effects of the multimedia features in VoiceThread discussions on student achievement in online classes. The study was conducted at a technical college in southwest Georgia during summer semester 2014. Based on the Operational Report FY 2012 provided to the Business Administrative Technology (BAT) department, this course under study had shown student performance to be consistently lower in online sections (general mean of 63.1%) than traditional, face-to-face sections (general mean of 77.75%). Recommendations were made by the BAT faculty, which included more student interaction and engagement through creative discussions. The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia served as this study’s conceptual framework to support that learning can be more successful if incoming information can be presented in multiple sensory memory channels for learners to process information.
The sample for this study included students already pre-registered in two online and two face-to-face sections of the course, which resulted in convenience sampling. This study used a quasi-experimental control group time series research design to determine if a specific treatment influenced student learning and student achievement. Data collection included six assessments, a course evaluation survey, and a multimedia questionnaire. A series of six assessments were used to determine how the multimedia tool, VoiceThread, affected student achievement in online learning. The course evaluation survey was administered to determine how the opinions and attitudes about the course differed between students in the control and treatment groups. Additionally, a multimedia questionnaire was administered to determine the opinions of students in the treatment group regarding the technology and its impact on the course. Descriptive statistics, comparison of means for independent samples (t test), and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were used for data analysis. Content analysis technique was also used to identify themes and trends for qualitative data collected through open-ended survey items and the comment section of the two surveys.
The findings of this study revealed no statistical significant difference between the treatment and control groups, but the student achievement for both groups were comparable based on the assessment mean scores. The course evaluation survey results indicated that the difference between the control and treatment groups was small, but both groups responded very positively about the course. The multimedia questionnaire responses indicated the usage of the multimedia tool, VoiceThread, was mostly positive for the students in the treatment group. Overall, the control and treatment groups were comparable in achievement, attitude, and opinion in the effectiveness of the course. Based on these results the two groups were comparable.