Date of Award

Spring 3-2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Dr. Kathy Grover

Second Advisor

Dr. Sherry DeVore

Third Advisor

Dr. Jeff Fulks

Abstract

Adding technology to the classroom has been an instructional strategy used by many higher-education institutions to increase student success, but merely adding computers, multimedia devices, and other technology to the classroom with pedagogical arbitrariness has proven to have little effect. The purpose of this study was to determine if using the adaptive learning technology (ALT) tool, LearnSmart, in seated introductory business courses would result in a statistically significant difference in unit exam scores, to analyze changes in exam performance through different time increments used of the ALT, and to investigate correlations between the student’s metacognition in the ALT module and his or her performance on the unit exam. The population of this study consisted of students in nine sections of introductory business courses at three large community colleges in the Midwest. The first group of students did not use LearnSmart before the exam, the second group of students completed a 20-minute LearnSmart module for each chapter before the exam, and the third group of students completed a 40- minute LearnSmart module for each chapter before the exam. From the data collected and analyzed in this study, there was a statistically significant positive difference in exam scores of students in an introductory business course who completed the 40-minute LearnSmart modules prior to the exam compared to students who did not use LearnSmart. There was also a statistically significant correlation between a student’s metacognitive score and his or her exam score.

Rights

Copyright 2016

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