The effect of adding online homework assignments to a small introductory physical geology class

Abstract

Online homework (OLH) assignments were added to the Introduction to Physical Geology class at Dickinson State University in the fall semester of 2014. Anticipated advantages included timely feedback and opportunities for students to correct mistakes made during homework completion. The same instructor taught all lecture and laboratory sections over the course of the study, and student performance was compared for the 3 years prior to adopting the OLH and the 3 years after. Following adoption of the OLH, the average grade in the class increased by 7.5% and average test scores increased by 6.2%. The OLH did not significantly improve the performance of the top students (those who received an A), but it did improve the performance of the other students. Test grades showed a similar trend. The average test scores for those who received an A in the class were 88.0% before and 88.6% after adopting the OLH, whereas test averages for students who received less than an A were 63.9% before and 71.4% (7.5% improvement) after adopting the OLH. There was no statistical difference in scores in the Introduction to Physical Geology laboratory over the same period. Students are required to take the lecture and laboratory at the same time, so the student populations were virtually identical. The OLH applied to the lecture, where grades improved, but not to the laboratory, where grades remained consistent. Therefore, it was concluded that the OLH improved student performance. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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