UH report shows college students making the grade online, in class

'Hybrid class' proves more successful for students than traditional class settings

HOUSTON, March 24, 2008—The lives of today’s college students have always included computers and the Internet. That technology now has moved from the ether into instruction.

A technical report from a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a “hybrid class” that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter-grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.

Brian McFarlin measured the student involvement and academic performance of a traditional class—Kinesiology 3306—from fall 2004 to fall 2005. He compared those measurements with those of students in the hybrid class, offered as an alternative from summer 2006 to fall 2007.

“One reason we offered the hybrid class in the first place was because students said they wanted it,” said McFarlin, a researcher and assistant professor. “Their formal evaluations of the class indicated the traditional class didn’t take advantage of instructional technologies available, and that these technologies could give them additional help and access to course material outside of class time.”

Hybrid classes are growing in popularity and practicality for students and professors, at UH and on campuses across the country, because of the presentation of material and the accessibility and flexibility to students. For example, an upper-level business law and ethics class in the UH Bauer College of Business reaches more than 1,000 students each academic year because of its flexible, hybrid offerings.

In addition, the UH Graduate Futures Studies has been experimenting with hybrid classes for the last five years. Houston students attend class in classrooms, but students as far away as Australia also take and participate in classes. To date, there has been limited literature addressing the effectiveness of such classes, McFarlin said.

McFarlin’s traditional kinesiology class met twice a week for a 90-minute lecture in a large auditorium. He used Microsoft PowerPoint slides with Flash media to present course material. He reported that, as is customary in large auditorium classes, interaction was minimal between students and professor.

His hybrid class met once a week for a traditional 90-minute lecture, but augmented the lesson with various forms of instructional technologies. The second lecture each week was administered by WebCT, an online venue for students to review course material. An animated character of McFarlin—an interactive SitePal avatar created by OddCast of New York—welcomed students to the site and provided class announcements. In addition, McFarlin

narrated material for upcoming lectures using Articulate Studio software, so students could prepare for the next class at their own pace.

“One major advantage of the Articulate software is that it enhances the appearance of standard PowerPoint files by allowing the course designer to add self-test questions, provide a search function and a navigation menu,” McFarlin said. “Once students completed the online lecture, they were required to take a WebCT quiz on the material. The majority of students scored between 90 and 100 percent.”