creation of delivery and presentation standards for boating safety courses
DESCRIPTION
A recent study conducted by NASBLA indicates that nearly 70 percent of boaters are choosing to complete their boating safety courses online. With this in mind, it is important to ensure that students taking an online boating safety course are presented the correct information and that the course is delivered in such a way as to support learning. Researchers from the University of Missouri worked alongside members of the NASBLA Education & Awareness Committee to craft a set of online course delivery and presentation standards that have been included as Standard 10 in the National Boating Education Standards. The researchers share the preliminary results of their research into the efficacy and usability of online boating safety courses which led to the new set of standards.TRANSCRIPT
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Joi L. Moore, Ph.D. Associate Professor
NASBLA Conference – Corpus Christi, Texas October 1, 2009
Happiness
Confusion
Frustration
Despair
A Common User Experience?
Usability Goal: Make this an uncommon experience
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International Standards Organization 9241 Usability Definition
The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in particular environments.
context
content users
Myth of the average user There is not one
Web users are unique
Cultural Differences Experiences Expertise Socialization
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User Centered Design
Older users Problems with: small fonts, pointing devices, multiple windows
Younger users Like lots of colors and animation; need large clickable objects
Visually impaired users Need text equivalent for every non-text element on websites
1. When system usability increase, overall student learning also increases • Meiselwitz & Sadera, 2008
2. Tool design and efficient usage significantly influences student learning outcomes and attitudes. • Fredericksen et al., 1999; Oliver & Herrington,
2003; Valenta, Therriault, Dieter & Mrtek, 2001 3. Student interactions with interface is positively
correlated to success in the course (Hillman, Willis, & Gunawardena (1994)
Usability and Learning
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Information Experience Lab�Project Tasks
1. Usability Evaluation: • Navigation, appearance, multimedia, and
organization of the courses • Instructional and message design strategies
2. Methods: • Heuristic Evaluation • Usability Testing at Boat Shows • Usability Testing at IE Lab
Working and Long Term Memory
Clark, R. (2007). Leveraging Multimedia for Learning
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Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning
1. Multimedia - Link pictorial and verbal presentation together
2. Modality - Animation with narration is better than animation and on-screen text
• (Exception: instructions and second language)
3. Redundancy – If animation and narration, no need for additional on-screen text
4. Interactivity principle - students learn better when given control of the media
Mayer, 2002
Elements Course A Course B Course C
Reading Time Control/ Information
Requires amount of time before proceeding to next section
Recommends amount of time before proceeding to next section
No time requirement
Audio No narrative text, but narration/audio with video
Narrative text No audio or narration
Animation Interactive Practice Activity
Content Animation None
Video Video with audio None None
Images Static Static Static
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Florida and Minnesota Boat Shows
Florida and Minnesota Boat Shows N=90
• Age: Mean (46.39), Min (18), Max (70)
• Gender: Males (56) Females (34)
• Internet experience: Advanced (21), Intermediate (43), Novice (15), Non-users (11)
• Online course experience: Yes (34), No (56)
• Preferences
• Content on one page (25 ) More than one page (65)
• Testing
• Review content first then test (48)
• Test first then review content (28)
• Keep taking the test without reviewing the content, until pass (14)
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Florida and Minnesota Boat Shows
A one-way ANOVA test showed that non internet users tend to prefer Course B (animation with narration) over the other courses.
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Course Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Total
A (video)
2 0 2 6 4 14
B (animation)
0 2 7 4 7 20
C (text)
2 6 12 10 10 40
Results for incorrect responses
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Course Mean St. Dev. N
A (video) 8.80 3.15 20
B (animation) 21.09 5.127 20
C (text) 9.55 3.15 20
Time in minutes
Observations of User Behaviors
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Confusion when placing text
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Recommendations for
Online Course Delivery and
Presentation
• There is no research stating an “ideal” number of chapters
• Depends on the content and number of learning objectives
• Chunk content into related units to prevent long durations of processing
An online course should be organized into at least 5 chapters.
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• Recommend 2-5 minutes for lessons (Clark, 2007) • Students can learn more from “leaner” lessons with
less but meaningful text (Mayer, 2005) • Working memory capacity should be considered
The credited time on any given content page should not exceed three (3) minutes.
• There is no research stating an “ideal” number of pages
• Chunk at the screen level: Topic, learning objective, or concept level
• Ensure that chunk does not require the learner to hold more than a few things in working memory at one time
The minimum number of content pages for the entire course should be at least ninety (90).
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• Provide text for hearing impaired (Section 508 compliance)
Whenever a video or animation is used within the course, a written script of the narration should
accompany it.
• Boat show data: 46% wanted to take the test without reviewing the content. • 28 wanted to take test first then review • 14 wanted to keep taking test until they passed
If the state permits, a student may opt to take a challenge exam prior to beginning the course.
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• Instructor-student interactions are important components of elearning (Moore, 1989; Davidson-Shivers, 2009)
• Inexperienced online learners need to know that there is support
• E-learning evaluation instruments include “contact information” as criteria: Reeves et al. (2002)
Throughout the online course, an e-mail link or phone number should be provided for students to use to contact the course provider. All inquiries should be
responded to within two (2) business days.
• When comparing courses, participants wanted interactive “drag and drop” activity represented in Course A (video). • Provide feedback for response and input errors
• Have simulation type interactions dispersed throughout lesson • attention and continuous processing of new
content is important (Clark, 2007) • Gagne’s 9 events of instruction (1985)
Provide “engaging” practice activities and appropriate feedback before the test
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• Moderate line lengths of 50 – 60 characters are optimal for reading from screens (e.g. Dyson & Kipping, 1998; Dyson & Haselgrove 2001).
• Adults prefer medium line length (76 cpl) and children prefer shorter line lengths (45 cpl), Bernard, Fernandez, Hull, & Chaparro (2003)
• IE Lab observations: older users 40+ used mouse/cursor to read, and positioned finger on side of monitor
Minimize line lengths to approximately 60-75 cpl and do not create large chunks of text with little white space
Joi L. Moore, Ph.D. Associate Professor