A Learner-Centred Induction to Moodle

Why is induction important? Successful induction programmes can:

Ease students’ transition into higher education (Harvey & Drew 2006; Currant & Keenan 2009; Packham et al 2004)

Help undergraduate students adjust to the expectations of higher education (Lowe & Cook 2003)

Facilitate social and emotional engagement (Christie et al 2008; Lavery 2009; Forrester et al 2005).

Engagement with staff and other students, effective pastoral and emotional support, and a sense of motivation and commitment to the programme and institution are factors which significantly influence retention rates (Yorke & Longden 2008).

HE students need to develop certain core skills:

Academic understanding, generic competence, reflection, and subject-specific skill (Mayes & De Freitas 2004)

Students in the social sciences specifically need to develop:

Information literacy, communication and dialogue, employment-related skills, and higher-order metacognitive skills (Jones 2007)

Learning

activity

design

principles

E-Learning activity design needs the same attention to

pedagogy and learning theory as in other environments (Krause & McEwen 2009)

Should focus on learners and

learning activity rather than just content delivery

or learning object design (Britain

2007)

Induction can easily become too content-focussed and lead

to information overload (Edward

2003)

Activity design was modelled on successful

examples of technology-enhanced social

constructivist induction programmes e.g. Edward

2003; Lavery 2009

Students complete a series of tasks in

groups to discover important information

for themselves

The Department of Psychology has made several changes to its induction programme in recent years, to incorporate more group activities and give

students more opportunities to work with and get to know each other at the start of the programme.

Students gave feedback on a video clip activity in which they recorded and edited short videos about themselves on the first day of induction week. With 1 as wholly negative and 10 as wholly positive, students scored the activity as follows:

2011 n = 20 Mean score 7.3

2012 n = 57 Mean score 7.8

Moodle Quiz A short quiz designed to encourage students to find out about Moodle’s basic functionality and how it is used at City University London

Who should you contact if... A quiz in which students have to decide which department or person to contact in a number of hypothetical situations they might encounter in the first weeks of term

Assessment on the BSc Psychology A quiz testing students’ knowledge of assessment policy and procedure in the Department of Psychology

Practice assignment submission A chance for students to submit a practice assignment via Moodle, to see the procedure in action before they have to submit a real assignment

Activities incorporated commonly-used Moodle tools such as the Quiz,

Questionnaire, Feedback and Assignment Upload:

Experimental design Evaluation used a quasi-experimental pre-post test (Cohen et al 2011: 322) with a random sample of half the cohort completing a questionnaire at the end of induction week (T1, n=31) and the entire cohort completing an identical questionnaire in week 3 of the Autumn Term (T2, n=60). The questions were based on relevant questions the University’s Your Voice student survey.

Questions: 1 I know exactly what will be expected of me on the BSc Psychology 2 I feel part of the Psychology community at City University London 3 I feel confident about starting BSc Psychology 4 I know where to go to get help if I have any problems on the

course 5 I am excited about being a student at City University London

Survey questions aimed to measure the impact of induction activities rather than students’ declared perceptions of the individual activities.

A between participant t-test was run on those who took T1 and T2, and T1 was not found to have an effect on the students’ responses for T2.

Induction activities should be subject– and course–

specific, reflecting students’ preoccupations as they

start their course

Evaluation feedback from

previous cohort

Findings from other studies, summarised in Harvey & Drew 2006

References Currant, B. & Keenan, C., 2009. Evaluating Systematic Transition to Higher Education. Brookes eJournal of Learning and Teaching, 2(4). Available at: http://bejlt.brookes.ac.uk/article/evaluating_systematic_transition_to_higher_education/.

Christie, H. et al., 2008. “A real rollercoaster of confidence and emotions”: Learning to be a university student. Studies in Higher Education, 33(5), pp.567–581. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075070802373040.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K., 2011. Research Methods in Education. 7th ed., Abingdon: Routledge.

Forrester, G. et al., 2005. Going the distance: students’ experiences of induction to distance learning in higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 29(4), 293–306. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03098770500353185.

Harvey, L. & Drew, S., 2006. The first-year experience : briefing on induction, Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/archive/first_year_experience_briefing_on_induction.pdf.

Jones, P., Jones, A. & Packham, G., 2009. E-learning induction design for an undergraduate entrepreneurship degree. The International Journal of Management Education, 8(1), pp.37–52. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/bmaf/documents/publications/IJME/Vol8no1/IJME8No1Paper4.pdf.

Lavery, J., 2009. Evolution of an induction programme. In 10th Annual Conference of the Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, 25-27 August 2009, Canterbury, England. 35–39. Available at: http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6252/1/6252.pdf?DDC119+DDD10+dcs0jl+d67a9y.

Mayes, T. & de Freitas, S., 2004. JISC e-Learning Models Desk Study Stage 2: Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models, Available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Stage 2 Learning Models %28Version 1%29.pdf. Lowe, H. & Cook, A., 2003. Mind the Gap : Are students prepared for higher education? Journal of Further and Higher Education, 27(1), 53–76. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03098770305629.

Packham, G. et al., 2004. E-learning and retention: key factors influencing student withdrawal. Education + Training, 46(6/7), 335–342. Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/00400910410555240.

Yorke, M. & Longden, B., 2008. The first-year experience of higher education in the UK, Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/resources/publications/FYEFinalReport.pdf.

Results When average answers to the 5 questions were compared at T1 (end of induction) and T2 (end of week 3) with independent sample t-tests, no significant change in either direction was observed.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

T1

T2

t statistic df P. (2 tailed)

Q1 -.357 77 .722

Q2 -1.707 77 .092

Q3 -1.333 77 .186

Q4 -.983 77 .329

Q5 -1.366 77 .176

Morris Pamplin1 & Dr Marie Poirier2, City University London 1 Education Support Team, School of Arts and Social Sciences 2 Department of Psychology

Totally agree Totally disagree

These results compare favourably to Yorke & Longden’s national survey of first-year UK undergraduates, which found “an overall trend ... across all items and responses, towards negativity” (Yorke & Longden 2008: 10).

What are your expectations of the BSc Psychology? A one-question Feedback activity designed to make students consider their expectations of the programme and compare their answer to other students’ responses