Comparative and non-comparative evaluation in educational technology

The first study title was "A Comparison of Student Outcomes & Satisfaction between Traditional & Web Based Course Offerings". This study was conducted by Julio and Margaret. On the other hand, another research paper conducted by Leslie and Elizabeth under "Post-Secondary Students’ Purposes for Blogging" title. The former study aimed to compare the efficacy of three classes' formats which are traditional section, web-based section and hybrid section). They compared student performance, student satisfaction, and instructor experiences in the three sections. However, the purpose of the second study was to explore post-secondary students’ purposes for blogging with particular attention to the social and instructional purposes. In the comparative study, 134 students participated who studied Introduction to Information Systems course. On the other hand, the non-comparative study participants were 9 students. All of these students are Foundation year students. All of whom created a blog which has one post at least. All students are Emirati citizens, females and between 17 and 20 years old. The instruments used in the comparative study consisted of multiple-choice exams and a researcher-developed questionnaire. The questionnaire was composed to measure the overall student satisfaction and satisfaction with the course format. In addition, the researchers used Chi square test of independence in order to assess the independent of the participants to their learning. In comparison, the non-comparative uses interviews and Rourke et al. tool to assess social presence. In addition, Gunawardena (1997) model was used to explain the process by which construction of knowledge occurred. The comparative study found that there was no significant difference in student performance, regardless of the class format. This result was figure out from comparison of the average of the exam scores. This result can get from this table:

Table 1: Exam Score AverageWeb based Class

As the data in Table 4 show, most students would be willing to enroll in a similar format course again.
Table 4: Sign-up for Similar Course in the Future (#students) Students)

In general, students were not completely satisfied with the web based course offering. However, the non-comparative Findings revealed that the primary use of blogging was for social purposes. Self-disclosure was the most notable purpose for blogging, in addition to sharing emotional responses to learning. The lack of teaching presence may have influenced students’ use of blogging for social rather than instructional purposes.
The advantages of the comparative study are:
• Students should be informed regarding course delivery methodology and the requirements for student participation
• Support for web delivered classes needs to be expanded. Both students and instructors require support.
But the advantages of the non-comparative are:
• Need more focus and use for the blogs for instructional purposes
• Encourage teachers to use blog in instructional process
The limitations of the comparative are:
• there is no guarantee that a homogenous cross-section enrolled in each course section
• Two different instructors taught the three sections. Obviously each instructor would place emphasis on different topics.
The limitation of the non-comparative is the focus on particular gender.

Here is a short presentation to

the two studies: