Internet Learning Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2012 | Page 27

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Internet Learning

Independent Variables
Three sources of independent variables were employed to explain students’ performance on
lecture-based quizzes. One explanatory variable, based on students’ ability, has been used often
in research on the effectiveness of online instruction. For this research measurement of ability
was provided by the grade point average (GPA) on applied financial assignments, which were
the primary contributors to the overall course grade. Recall that quiz performance was used as
an extra-credit component of the overall grade, which tended to help students with poor to good
performance on the financial assignments, but not excellent performers. Applied financial
assignments drew upon a general knowledge base, since the emphasis in grading these was on
computing, reasoning, and writing proficiency, rather than the contextual and political aspects of
budgeting, which were the basis for quizzes. Given the largely disjoint bodies of knowledge for
these two components of the overall grade, sufficient independence was maintained and multicollinearity avoided, so that the common element that applied to both the financial assignments
and the quizzes was students’ basic scholastic acumen.
Another factor that applied to this use of broadcasting technology is the attendance mode,
in-person or virtual. This variable supported an examination of virtual students’ absorption of
lecture material on budgetary politics and context, as compared to students attending in person.
Because of the synchronous broadcast, the previously identified advantages of distance
education, such as time for reflection, did not apply in this instance. Neither group of students
had an advantage in resources, since the course was scheduled for a laboratory classroom,
providing in-person students with computers. The laboratory was assigned because of extensive
use of Excel for the applied financial assignments. Internet access was permitted in completing
quizzes.
In the absence of additional time or resources available to virtual students, the salient
mechanisms appear to be the transmission capacity—to broadcast the lecture content faithfully—
and the comparative levels of distraction inside and outside the classroom setting. In both cases
the effects can be expected to reduce virtual student performance. The standard for effectiveness
of transmission is to provide an equivalent experience to in-person attendance. The sources of
subpar transmission included component limitations, for example the inability of virtual students
to hear clearly the questions posed by students in class; operator error, such as the instructor’s
failure to turn on the microphone; and a multitude of possible hardware or software failures, such
as the interruption of the signal between the classroom computer and the network (see Table 2).
The only plausible elements of a superior experience from transmission would involve aids such
as closed captioning, which were not provided in this case. With regard to potential distractions,
the instructor exercised a large degree of control over the classroom environment, but lacked
comparable control over the virtual environment—accordingly presumed to vary considerably.
The remaining factors revolved around the issue of experience. Two of the independent
variables involved the experience with quizzes: one with the sequence of the quiz within the
semester (first through eighth); and the other with the number of virtual quizzes taken
previously. Both of these variables could be expected to contribute to student performance, by
increasing students’ familiarity with the quiz format in the former case, and increasing students’