Applying the ESPRI to K-12 Blended LearningJason SikoAssistant Professor of Educational TechnologyGrand Valley State University

The problem

Attrition in online courses

Difficult to tell extent, because organizations often do not report the same information

Some leave out attrition w/in first few weeks

Some eliminate failures or “outliers”

Why do students not complete online courses?

The perfect online learner

Barbour & Reeves, 2009MotivatedIndependentSupportive familyAccess to technology and workspace

…does this describe all online learners?

Possible factors influencing success

Kim, Park, Cozart (2013)Self-efficacy

Reason for taking course (acceleration, credit recovery)

Achievement beliefs

Vicious cycle when isolation, difficulty, and level of perseverance lead to frustration.

What about blended?

Staker (2011): “…any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick- and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace” (p.11)

Fastest growing segment of online learning (Watson et al., 2011)

Research on K-12 blended learning is lagging behind its exponential growth in several areas (Barbour, Siko, Gross, & Waddell, 2013)

Educational Success Prediction Instrument (ESPRI)

Validated instrument shown to accurately predict success (~pass vs. fail) in an online course

Accurately predicted success in ~90% of cases (Roblyer & Marshall, 2003; Roblyer, Davis, Mills, Marshall, and Pape, 2008) in online courses

Asks questions in 4 areas Self-efficacy/Technology Use

Achievement Beliefs

Risk-taking beliefs (in classroom)

Organization beliefs

http://tinyurl.com/sikoespri

Research Questions

1. Is there any difference in student performance between the traditional and blended portions of the course?

2. How well does the ESPRI survey accurately predict the performance of students in a blended course?

Setting

AY2011-2012

Large, suburban, Midwestern high school (~1800 students in grades 10-12)

Culturally homogenous; however, diverse with respect to SES

Course: International Baccalaureate Biology – Higher Level (IB Bio-HL)

43 students, grade 11

1st half of course – Face-to-face

2nd half of course - blended

Methods

RQ1: Compare grades for F2F and blended semesters

Paired t-test

RQ2: Administer ESPRI at beginning of blended semester

Use end-of-semester grades, pass/fail (70% cutoff)

Multiple discriminant analysis

Wilks’ lambda and Press’s Q to test for validity of results

RQ1

Not significantly different, t(42) = 0.95; p = .35.

Different content covered; may not be equal in difficulty

RQ2

Overall, predicted 38/43 cases (~88%)

Concerns:Low sample size (20:1 ratio of cases:factors)

Wilks’ lambda was not statistically significantHowever, Press’s Q statistic was statistically significant

Further directions

Larger studies using ESPRI in blended learning situations

Develop methods of providing targeted support to students who score low in certain areas of ESPRI

Authors of previous studies involving ESPRI recommend NOT using instrument as a selection tool for online courses; rather, use it to provide supports

Need for systematic study of student performance where students have low scores on ESPRI and were provided support

Questions?

Thanks for coming!

Jason SikoAssistant Professor of Educational TechnologyGrand Valley State UniversityGrand Rapids, MI

sikojp@gmail.com / sikoj@gvsu.edu

http://jasonsiko.com

@jasonsiko