Students’ achievement in an online course on technical writing and communication skills

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to investigate students’ satisfaction, self-efficacy and perceived competencies in a ‘technical writing and communication skills’ course after the switch of teaching the course from face to face to fully online during and after COVID-19. The study also measured the Achievement of Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology course learning outcomes (CLOs). Design/methodology/approach A descriptive cross-sectional survey design approach was adopted in this study. Students were asked to respond to an online survey after completion of the course to measure the target parameters. The data of 250 respondents, analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 28, show high scores on all constructs. Findings Statistically significant differences among gender, field of study, grade point average (GPA) level, type of school attended and attainment of English proficiency certificate were detected for students in terms of their baseline perceived competencies, achievement of CLOs and self-efficacy scores. In addition, gender, field of study, GPA and holding an international English proficiency certificate had statistically significant effect, whereas the academic level and type of school were insignificant. Research limitations/implications First, the data had been collected through survey only. A limitation of this method is that there could be survey fraud. Second, as some respondents found the survey long, their responses might have been less reliable. Moreover, as the survey was entirely conducted online, this may have caused limited sampling, because some respondents are less likely to have internet access/disconnection and respond to online surveys. Furthermore, this research had focused on studying the impact of an online course on university students’ achievement in a Jordanian university, this limits the generalizability of the result to students of other levels and classes, or ones studying in other universities or living in different countries. Practical implications Because of its impact on effective teaching and achievement, educators need to pay much attention to self-efficacy when designing new curricula for different environmental contexts. Furthermore, it is apparent that some courses, such as “technical writing” can be taught fully online without affecting students’ performance and achievement. Because educators always look for ways that make teaching effective, they may need to consider online platforms for teaching specific courses, hence save time, effort and resources. Originality/value A course on technical writing and communication skills offered to undergraduate engineering and information technology students at Princess Sumaya University for Technology was switched from face to face to fully online modality during the COVID-19 pandemic in the period 2020–2021. The effect of such massive and sudden transformation on students’ achievement and satisfaction called for immediate scrutiny of the prospect and expectancy of online learning.

Students’ Perceptions towards the Role of Online Teaching Platforms in Enhancing Online Engagement and Academic Performance Levels in Palestinian Higher Education Institutions

“…The researchers also attributed a large number of respondents' dissatisfaction with online education to poor organization and design of online learning activities, difficulties in maintaining interaction and comprehending online materials when using the Moodle platform, infrastructure issues, professors' insufficient skills in online teaching, a lack of regular feedback about their progress from their instructors, and a limited number of resources that a student could access. These results coincide with those found in several studies [37,39,40,[46][47][48][49]. On the other hand, the research conducted by Khan et al [41] emphasizes the positive influence of the design of online courses on students' satisfaction, performance, knowledge, and skills.…”

“…On the other hand, the research conducted by Khan et al [41] emphasizes the positive influence of the design of online courses on students' satisfaction, performance, knowledge, and skills. Besides, Gopal et al [35] and Yasin et al [49] agreed that in order to improve the effectiveness of online teaching, instructors should prioritize self-efficacy when designing online courses. The participants' low attitudes toward their asynchronous classes were consistent with the findings of previous studies, such as the research conducted by Borg [50], who found that students reported higher levels of comfort using online synchronous classes than both in-person and online asynchronous classes.…”

“…There appears to be broad agreement on the importance of student satisfaction in predicting academic experience in online learning [34][35][36]41,49,[53][54][55].…”

“…The data were collected through a survey instrument designed and developed by the researchers, based on the research questions and the previous literature such as studies of Dumford and Miller [11], Friska [38], Adnan and Anwar [39], Coman et al [40], Essel et al [44], Sørum [46], Cranfield et al [47], Hussein et al [48], Yasin et al [49], Borg et al [50], and Abou-Khalil et al [51]. The survey was distributed to the participants during the second and summer semesters of the academic year 2021-2022.…”

Study on the Teaching Effect Evaluation Based on the Big Data and IOT

“…By doing so, learners, instructional institutions, and employers can get entry to applicable records each time and anywhere. With a stronger credit management system in place, the liquidity of recognition results can be significantly improved [5].…”