CLASS™ Project Research Study Summary
Assessing the Effects of a Web-Based Study Skills Course on Students With in Millard South High School’s Alternative Education Program: New Frontier

IRB #98-12-126 FB (Millard South) (1997 – 2000)

The purpose of this study was to closely examine the use of a metaphor or storyline as a means to enhance learning in an on-line high school course. Research focused on the role of the metaphor in complementing learning and examined the conditions under which metaphor began to distract from learning for at-risk learners. The CLASS™ course selected for this study (“Learning Fundamentals”) contained study skills content overlaid with the metaphor of a health club with athletic activities. In the course, learners had contact with the content as they participated in the activities and interacted with the on-line characters.

The course was highly visual with rich use of color, graphics, animation, sound bytes, and other multimedia elements. Some aspects of the metaphor are instructional and others were constructed solely to support the story. An example of the metaphor being used as part of instruction was a character who talked to the learner to explain concepts. The metaphor also appeared in the visual setting or context, where course language is consistent with the setting.

The method of data collection was an on-line survey of 46 students in a study skills course that was part of the curriculum for an urban school setting for at-risk youth. The survey consisted of 27 questions that explored effects of the course metaphor, navigation within the on-line course, and transfer of learning skills to life skills. The first question was open-ended, and the remaining 26 required Likert-scale responses. Surveys were administered on-line at specific locations within the course. Repeated administrations of the survey were expected to probe changes in student responses over time as they interacted with the elements of the course.

Focus groups were conducted to gain students’ impressions of their experience with the course and the web medium. The focus groups targeted the following issues: effects of the course metaphor, course navigation, potential transfer of learning skills to life skills, and general impressions of web-based instruction.

This project took two and one half years to design the curriculum, build and produce the course, build collaboration and partnership with the target high school, and implement in the classroom. It took more than 30 months to create and 3 months to bring to a conclusion due to technical difficulty. Technical difficulties brought the study to an abrupt halt. However, students had experienced sufficient exposure to key metaphorical features of the course such that the analysis based upon this amount of information, supplemented by focus groups, would reflect student judgments about the metaphor’s functioning in this on-line environment.

Lessons learned from the project were numerous. Conclusions from this study were drawn from both the study and from the total experience of creating the course, the study, and following up with the study procedures.
• Conclusions from the survey and focus groups recommend that on-line course designers maintain a storyline but within certain limits.
• Metaphor as virtual context is pedagogically sound. However, students want a storyline that is connected to the content. A story that is unrelated is cognitively difficult to negotiate, and does not help the learner to transfer the content to “real life” whether the real life is virtual or not. Maintain the metaphor, but keep it related to the subject matter.

• Conclusions regarding graphics recommend that the graphic intensity not only be maintained throughout a course but should be consistent from the splash page throughout the course. Much production attention is given to the initial pages to make the course attractive and inviting to enter. Student responses indicate engagement falls off as students continue into the course. This may be a result of the bright, engaging promises. If such promises were made, they must be maintained.

Some students were very concerned about their education and their future careers. Attention to motivational strategies that target intrinsic and extrinsically motivated learners, problem-based or case-based learning, will assist students with future life application.