Using Technology To Enhance a Course: The Importance of Interaction

24 Iteach the course Organizational Behavior to undergraduates in the School of Business at Indiana University Southeast, a regional campus in the IU system. In 1999, I became interested in the possibilities of using Internet technology in my courses. According to many studies, differences in media used to provide lectures make no difference in student outcomes. (See the sidebar “Some Reviews of Media Comparison Studies.”) Known as the “no significant difference effect,” this conclusion has been used to support more technology in education based on the logic that if it is as effective as traditional means, technology should be used when it is cheaper and more convenient. As part of an Ameritech grant in 2000,1 I began a systematic investigation of Internet-based classroom technology to improve my teaching. Six sections of 118 students total have participated in two studies to investigate the use of educational technology. In one study, lectures and interaction were provided online and compared to a face-to-face experience. A second study, performed the next academic year, assessed the impact of interaction apart from lecture. In the second study, after online lectures were provided to all students, interacting online was compared with interacting face-to-face in a classroom. In both studies, surveys were administered before and after each semester to gather demographic and psychological measures. Both performance and student perceptions were tracked across each semester. Results ran counter to the no-significant-difference effect, as differences in media and interactions were associated with differences in educational outcomes.