Field, A --- "The Agency of Innovation: Subject Websites, Their Perceived Value and Student Performance" [2005] LegEdDig 45; (2005) 14(1) Legal Education Digest 16

The Agency of Innovation: Subject Websites, Their Perceived Value and Student Performance

A Field

[2005] LegEdDig 45; (2005) 14(1) Legal Education Digest 16

14 Legal Educ Rev 2, 2004, pp 127–152

The innovations of the information revolution, computers, the Internet and other increasingly frequent signs that we are now living in the 21st century, have given rise to novel observations in all fields of human activity. In the teaching of the law in university courses, this is no exception. The observation which gave rise to the present article arose through the teaching of the introductory course, Commercial Law, to business students at Monash University, Australia.

The relevant observation concerned a student who five weeks into semester was identified as answering a greater proportion of questions in a 20-student tutorial class and who had an above average command of the material being studied and discussed than her classmates. In the teaching of Commercial Law, a WebCT subject site is used mainly as a course materials delivery platform. Thus, in view of the fact that the students would probably have only needed to access the site to download the unit tutorial questions book, the unit outline and five weeks of lecture notes, the revelation that the particular student had accessed the website more than 150 times appeared staggering. The study, which formed the basis of this article, was concerned with addressing whether there was a correlation between the frequency of student access to the WebCT site and a student’s final performance in the unit, as represented by their final grade.

As a vast literature already exists questioning the effect of teaching technologies on student performance, the value of the technology had to be assessed in terms of its use — even merely the volume of its use by students, and conscientious students in particular. Undoubtedly, the electronic technologies developed to assist teachers have made an overt and immediately apparent impact over the last 50 years. One topic of conversation that is probably a favourite in many university staff common rooms is to opine about the merits of the Socratic method of teaching. However, lecturers who cite Socrates as a reason to lecture with only ‘chalk and talk’ to a lecture theatre filled with over a hundred students, where there is little hope for discussion with full group participation, misunderstand Socrates. The modern reality of lecturing to vast groups in lecture theatres is clearly a different matter to the Socratic ideal. There can be no pretence of individual attention being given to each student and any lecturer who attempted to argue to the contrary should be challenged to identify by name all of the students in such a class from memory.

Students’ performances in Commercial Law are assessed on the basis of two tasks. First, they are required to submit a 2,500-word assignment worth 30 percent of the final mark, including a headnote of a Supreme Court judgment and advice for a legal dispute for which the facts are provided. The second portion of the assessment is a three-hour end-of-semester examination.

Since 1999 the teaching staff at Monash University have utilised the Internet and a unit-specific website, loaded onto the Internet via software provided by WebCT, to assist in the teaching of the unit. The chief advantage of this system is that the software is simple enough to operate to enable the individual lecturer to control the material placed on the website without time delays. Accordingly, the Commercial Law WebCT site is essentially a materials delivery system, enabling mass delivery of materials to students within minutes of its creation.

In the early days of WebCT use in Commercial Law, the website was often used as a demonstration model in the university for other lecturers seeking to employ the software in their teaching. The use of subject websites and information technologies has been quite common now for at least the last five years. Similarly, as to studies specifically devoted to the uses of WebCT that might be comparable, they are not ideal in the present context. They can be distinguished from the present study in at least three different ways. First, there are those based on the use of WebCT to provide courses entirely online. Secondly, there are those studies whose evidence was derived from classes with enrolments far below the 500 students that form the basis of the present study. The third difficulty with other studies concerns the manner in which their conclusions were derived and the level of empirical supporting evidence.

The most basic assumption adopted by universities in Australia in their implementation of information technologies, personal computers and the Internet as a means of communicating with students is that all students have access to these technologies. Therefore, it would be safe to draw certain conclusions regarding a student’s use of the Internet on the basis that all students had similar opportunities without a large number of students labouring under a special disadvantage related to computer access. It was also considered useful to determine how students used the WebCT site. Obviously, an assumption underlying the hypothesis that better students accessed the WebCT site more often was that they were accessing certain types of material. One further matter that was addressed in the questionnaire was concerned with the students’ perceptions of the value of the WebCT site. As noted above, it was ascertained indirectly that students preferred obtaining lecture notes from the WebCT site rather than from the university library.

At all times, the WebCT program retains tallies of the number of times each individual has visited a page on the website, each visit being described as a ‘hit’. By tallying this information, one of the two questions raised in this article could be swiftly answered. The total number of visits to pages on the WebCT site could be compared with the students’ final marks at the end of semester and it could be observed whether students who scored higher final marks accessed these pages more than other students.

It was considered useful to see if any trends could be observed between student uses at three-week intervals. Unfortunately, although the WebCT system keeps a cumulative tally for each student, it does not keep a progressive record of visits at certain intervals. Hence, if a student’s record was examined on the WebCT hit counter in the exam week, the only information which would be available would be the total number of hits. The clearest trend evidenced from this information is the way the High Distinction students stand out. In the first half of the semester, not only did these students access the WebCT site more often than other students, but they also accessed the site in the first half more often than they did in the second half of semester. The trend suggests that better performing students did access the Commercial Law website more often than other students. However, the evidence indicates this is attributable to them being more attentive and active on the site earlier than other students. The adoption of modern teaching aids, including the Internet and websites, recalls a similarity between law teachers and practitioners. On the one hand, there are those law teachers who maintain that the teaching methods of a century ago are still the most effective and who turn their backs on anything that might suggest change. Conversely, there are law lecturers who bear an uncanny resemblance to their brethren in practice, desiring to use the latest equipment the modern age has to offer.

It is difficult to convince lecturers who do not use such technologies in their teaching that there are good educational reasons for using them. This article has set down some evidence as to why the adoption of websites, a dedicated WebCT site in this case, even as mere platforms for the delivery of materials, is a tool to be embraced. Even taking the students’ view that the website is a valuable tool and that they would encourage its retention, it was observed that generally those students who accessed the website also appear to have been the students who performed to a higher standard in the unit. Therefore, in this context there is a possibility that there may be a causative link effect — albeit an indirect link — between new teaching technologies and student performance. Of course, there are other matters that may have stronger claims to affecting student performance. However, this article has been concerned with identifying whether those better students use a particular technology. It has established that those students who will perform well will generally use this technology. Therefore, evidence of frequency of student access can assist teachers in identifying students who already have the capacity to do well, with or without the website. Add to this the evidence that the better students value websites and that the majority of students value the site, there appears at least to be engagement by students with their studies.