Carol Watson | Indiana University (original) (raw)

Papers by Carol Watson

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2009

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2010

Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problembased learning, a... more Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problembased learning, and a focus on complex learning. Instructors often struggle to put these goals into practice as well as to measure the effectiveness of these new teaching strategies in terms of mastery of course objectives. Enter the course evaluation, often a standardized tool that yields little practical information for an instructor, but is nonetheless utilized in making high-level career decisions, such as tenure and monetary awards to faculty. The present researchers have developed a new instrument to measure teaching and learning quality (TALQ). In a study of 464 students in 12 courses, if students agreed that they experienced academic learning time (ALT) and that their instructors used First Principles of Instruction, then students were nearly 4 times more likely achieve high levels of mastery of course objectives, according to independent instructor assessments. TALQ can measure improvements in use of First Principles in teaching and course design. The feedback from this instrument can assist teachers who wish to implement the recommendation made by Kuh et al. (2006) that universities and colleges should focus their assessment efforts on factors that influence student success.

Human Movement Science, 2015

Many children have difficulty producing movements well enough to improve in perceptuo-motor learn... more Many children have difficulty producing movements well enough to improve in perceptuo-motor learning. We have developed a training method that supports active movement generation to allow improvement in a 3D tracing task requiring good compliance control. We previously tested 7-8year old children who exhibited poor performance and performance differences before training. After training, performance was significantly improved and performance differences were eliminated. According to the Dynamic Systems Theory of development, appropriate support can enable younger children to acquire the ability to perform like older children. In the present study, we compared 7-8 and 10-12year old school children and predicted that younger children would show reduced performance that was nonetheless amenable to training. Indeed, the pre-training performance of the 7-8year olds was worse than that of the 10-12year olds, but post-training performance was equally good for both groups. This was similar to previous results found using this training method for children with DCD and age-matched typically developing children. We also found in a previous study of 7-8year old school children that training in the 3D tracing task transferred to a 2D drawing task. We now found similar transfer for the 10-12year olds.

While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the ma... more While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the majority of recent U.S. college graduates lack proficiency in desired skills. TALQ, a new course evaluation instrument, was developed from validated instructional theory that predicts student success. A survey of 193 students in 111 different courses at multiple institutions was conducted using TALQ. Results indicated strong associations (p < 0.0286) among student ratings of first principles of instruction, academic learning time, perceptions of learning gains, satisfaction with courses, perceived mastery of course objectives, and their overall evaluation of courses and instructors. Instructors can implement the theoretically-derived first principles of instruction by challenging students with real-world problems or tasks, activating student learning, demonstrating what is to be learned, providing feedback on student learning attempts, and encouraging student integration of learning into their personal lives. Theory-Based Course Evaluation-3 Problem This study began because the first author served on a university committee which was expected to choose a few outstanding college instructors as recipients of significant monetary awards. The top candidates recommended by their departments had provided the committee with customary forms of evidence that have been used for evaluation of teaching for promotion and tenure. This experience nonetheless raised the question: What empirical evidence is there that course evaluation data are associated with student learning achievement? Thus, we began to review research on student course evaluation in higher education. A review by Cohen (1981) stood out as the most highly cited in the Web of Knowledge by scholarly research studies subsequently published on this issue. Cohen's study: … used meta-analytic methodology to synthesize research on the relationship between student ratings of instruction and student achievement. The data for the meta-analysis came from 41 independent validity studies reporting on 68 separate multisection courses relating student ratings to student achievement. The average correlation between an overall instructor rating and student achievement was .43; the average overall course rating and student achievement was .47…. The results of the meta-analysis provide strong support for the validity of student ratings as measures of teaching effectiveness. (p. 281). According to Cohen (1981, p. 193), a typical example of an overall instructor rating item was: "The instructor is an excellent teacher." A typical overall course rating item was: "This is an excellent course." Cohen also found that ratings of instructor skill correlated on average 0.50 with student achievement (e.g., "The instructor has good command of the subject matter.", "The instructor gives clear explanations.") The other factor that showed a high average correlation

Educational Media and Technology Yearbook, 2009

… conference, New York, 2008

While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the ma... more While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the majority of recent U.S. college graduates lack proficiency in desired skills. TALQ, a new course evaluation instrument, was developed from validated instructional theory that predicts student success. A survey of 193 students in 111 different courses at multiple institutions was conducted using TALQ. Results indicated strong associations (p < 0.0286) among student ratings of first principles of instruction, academic learning time, perceptions of learning gains, satisfaction with courses, perceived mastery of course objectives, and their overall evaluation of courses and instructors. Instructors can implement the theoretically-derived first principles of instruction by challenging students with real-world problems or tasks, activating student learning, demonstrating what is to be learned, providing feedback on student learning attempts, and encouraging student integration of learning into their personal lives.

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2009

Numerous instructional design models have been proposed over the past several decades. Instead of... more Numerous instructional design models have been proposed over the past several decades. Instead of focusing on the design process (means), this study investigated how learners perceived the quality of instruction they experienced (ends). An electronic survey instrument containing nine a priori scales was developed. Students responded from 89 different undergraduate and graduate courses at multiple institutions (n = 140). Data analysis indicated strong correlations between student self-reports on academic learning time, how much they learned, First Principles of Instruction, their satisfaction with the course, perceptions of their mastery of course objectives, and global course ratings. Most importantly, these scales measure principles with which instructional developers and teachers can evaluate their products and courses, regardless of design processes used: provide authentic tasks for students to do; activate prior learning; demonstrate what is to be learned; provide repeated opportunities for students to successfully complete authentic tasks with coaching and feedback; and help students integrate what they have learned into their personal lives.

Educational Media and Technology Yearbook, 2009

While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the ma... more While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the majority of recent U.S. college graduates lack proficiency in desired skills. Teaching and Learning Quality (TALQ), a new course evaluation instrument, was developed from extant instructional theory that promotes student learning. A survey of 193 students in 111 different courses at multiple institutions was conducted using TALQ. Results indicated strong associations among student ratings of First Principles of Instruction, academic learning time, perceptions of learning gains, satisfaction with courses, perceived mastery of course objectives, and their overall evaluation of courses and instructors. Instructors can implement the theoretically derived First Principles of Instruction by challenging students with real-world problems or tasks, activating student learning, demonstrating what is to be learned, providing feedback on student learning attempts, and encouraging student integration of learning into their personal lives.

Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problem-based learning, ... more Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problem-based learning, and a focus on complex learning. Instructors often struggle to put these goals into practice as well as to measure the effectiveness of these new teaching strategies in terms of mastery of course objectives. Enter the course evaluation, often a standardized tool that yields little practical information for an instructor, but is nonetheless utilized in making high-level career decisions, such as tenure and monetary awards to faculty. The present researchers have developed a new instrument to measure teaching and learning quality (TALQ). In the current study of 464 students in 12 courses, if students agreed that their instructors used First Principles of Instruction and also agreed that they experienced academic learning time (ALT), then students were about 5 times more likely to achieve high levels of mastery of course objectives and 26 times less likely to achieve low levels of mastery, according to independent instructor assessments. TALQ can measure improvements in use of First Principles in teaching and course design. The feedback from this instrument can assist teachers who wish to implement the recommendation made by that universities and colleges should focus their assessment efforts on factors that influence student success.

Educational Media and Technology Yearbook, Jan 1, 2010

The Instructional and Learning Technologies (ILT) Department in the College of Education, Sultan ... more The Instructional and Learning Technologies (ILT) Department in the College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), was established in 2005. Its mission is to achieve excellence in its provision of teaching, research and social services in the field of ILT. It offers a BA in ILT to meet the potential needs for information technology (IT) teachers and learning resources centres (LRC) specialists at both Omani basic education and general education levels. In this chapter, I will present main departmental, programme and prospective issues.

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2009

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2010

Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problembased learning, a... more Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problembased learning, and a focus on complex learning. Instructors often struggle to put these goals into practice as well as to measure the effectiveness of these new teaching strategies in terms of mastery of course objectives. Enter the course evaluation, often a standardized tool that yields little practical information for an instructor, but is nonetheless utilized in making high-level career decisions, such as tenure and monetary awards to faculty. The present researchers have developed a new instrument to measure teaching and learning quality (TALQ). In a study of 464 students in 12 courses, if students agreed that they experienced academic learning time (ALT) and that their instructors used First Principles of Instruction, then students were nearly 4 times more likely achieve high levels of mastery of course objectives, according to independent instructor assessments. TALQ can measure improvements in use of First Principles in teaching and course design. The feedback from this instrument can assist teachers who wish to implement the recommendation made by Kuh et al. (2006) that universities and colleges should focus their assessment efforts on factors that influence student success.

Human Movement Science, 2015

Many children have difficulty producing movements well enough to improve in perceptuo-motor learn... more Many children have difficulty producing movements well enough to improve in perceptuo-motor learning. We have developed a training method that supports active movement generation to allow improvement in a 3D tracing task requiring good compliance control. We previously tested 7-8year old children who exhibited poor performance and performance differences before training. After training, performance was significantly improved and performance differences were eliminated. According to the Dynamic Systems Theory of development, appropriate support can enable younger children to acquire the ability to perform like older children. In the present study, we compared 7-8 and 10-12year old school children and predicted that younger children would show reduced performance that was nonetheless amenable to training. Indeed, the pre-training performance of the 7-8year olds was worse than that of the 10-12year olds, but post-training performance was equally good for both groups. This was similar to previous results found using this training method for children with DCD and age-matched typically developing children. We also found in a previous study of 7-8year old school children that training in the 3D tracing task transferred to a 2D drawing task. We now found similar transfer for the 10-12year olds.

While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the ma... more While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the majority of recent U.S. college graduates lack proficiency in desired skills. TALQ, a new course evaluation instrument, was developed from validated instructional theory that predicts student success. A survey of 193 students in 111 different courses at multiple institutions was conducted using TALQ. Results indicated strong associations (p < 0.0286) among student ratings of first principles of instruction, academic learning time, perceptions of learning gains, satisfaction with courses, perceived mastery of course objectives, and their overall evaluation of courses and instructors. Instructors can implement the theoretically-derived first principles of instruction by challenging students with real-world problems or tasks, activating student learning, demonstrating what is to be learned, providing feedback on student learning attempts, and encouraging student integration of learning into their personal lives. Theory-Based Course Evaluation-3 Problem This study began because the first author served on a university committee which was expected to choose a few outstanding college instructors as recipients of significant monetary awards. The top candidates recommended by their departments had provided the committee with customary forms of evidence that have been used for evaluation of teaching for promotion and tenure. This experience nonetheless raised the question: What empirical evidence is there that course evaluation data are associated with student learning achievement? Thus, we began to review research on student course evaluation in higher education. A review by Cohen (1981) stood out as the most highly cited in the Web of Knowledge by scholarly research studies subsequently published on this issue. Cohen's study: … used meta-analytic methodology to synthesize research on the relationship between student ratings of instruction and student achievement. The data for the meta-analysis came from 41 independent validity studies reporting on 68 separate multisection courses relating student ratings to student achievement. The average correlation between an overall instructor rating and student achievement was .43; the average overall course rating and student achievement was .47…. The results of the meta-analysis provide strong support for the validity of student ratings as measures of teaching effectiveness. (p. 281). According to Cohen (1981, p. 193), a typical example of an overall instructor rating item was: "The instructor is an excellent teacher." A typical overall course rating item was: "This is an excellent course." Cohen also found that ratings of instructor skill correlated on average 0.50 with student achievement (e.g., "The instructor has good command of the subject matter.", "The instructor gives clear explanations.") The other factor that showed a high average correlation

Educational Media and Technology Yearbook, 2009

… conference, New York, 2008

While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the ma... more While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the majority of recent U.S. college graduates lack proficiency in desired skills. TALQ, a new course evaluation instrument, was developed from validated instructional theory that predicts student success. A survey of 193 students in 111 different courses at multiple institutions was conducted using TALQ. Results indicated strong associations (p < 0.0286) among student ratings of first principles of instruction, academic learning time, perceptions of learning gains, satisfaction with courses, perceived mastery of course objectives, and their overall evaluation of courses and instructors. Instructors can implement the theoretically-derived first principles of instruction by challenging students with real-world problems or tasks, activating student learning, demonstrating what is to be learned, providing feedback on student learning attempts, and encouraging student integration of learning into their personal lives.

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2009

Numerous instructional design models have been proposed over the past several decades. Instead of... more Numerous instructional design models have been proposed over the past several decades. Instead of focusing on the design process (means), this study investigated how learners perceived the quality of instruction they experienced (ends). An electronic survey instrument containing nine a priori scales was developed. Students responded from 89 different undergraduate and graduate courses at multiple institutions (n = 140). Data analysis indicated strong correlations between student self-reports on academic learning time, how much they learned, First Principles of Instruction, their satisfaction with the course, perceptions of their mastery of course objectives, and global course ratings. Most importantly, these scales measure principles with which instructional developers and teachers can evaluate their products and courses, regardless of design processes used: provide authentic tasks for students to do; activate prior learning; demonstrate what is to be learned; provide repeated opportunities for students to successfully complete authentic tasks with coaching and feedback; and help students integrate what they have learned into their personal lives.

Educational Media and Technology Yearbook, 2009

While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the ma... more While student global ratings of college courses historically predict learning achievement, the majority of recent U.S. college graduates lack proficiency in desired skills. Teaching and Learning Quality (TALQ), a new course evaluation instrument, was developed from extant instructional theory that promotes student learning. A survey of 193 students in 111 different courses at multiple institutions was conducted using TALQ. Results indicated strong associations among student ratings of First Principles of Instruction, academic learning time, perceptions of learning gains, satisfaction with courses, perceived mastery of course objectives, and their overall evaluation of courses and instructors. Instructors can implement the theoretically derived First Principles of Instruction by challenging students with real-world problems or tasks, activating student learning, demonstrating what is to be learned, providing feedback on student learning attempts, and encouraging student integration of learning into their personal lives.

Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problem-based learning, ... more Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problem-based learning, and a focus on complex learning. Instructors often struggle to put these goals into practice as well as to measure the effectiveness of these new teaching strategies in terms of mastery of course objectives. Enter the course evaluation, often a standardized tool that yields little practical information for an instructor, but is nonetheless utilized in making high-level career decisions, such as tenure and monetary awards to faculty. The present researchers have developed a new instrument to measure teaching and learning quality (TALQ). In the current study of 464 students in 12 courses, if students agreed that their instructors used First Principles of Instruction and also agreed that they experienced academic learning time (ALT), then students were about 5 times more likely to achieve high levels of mastery of course objectives and 26 times less likely to achieve low levels of mastery, according to independent instructor assessments. TALQ can measure improvements in use of First Principles in teaching and course design. The feedback from this instrument can assist teachers who wish to implement the recommendation made by that universities and colleges should focus their assessment efforts on factors that influence student success.

Educational Media and Technology Yearbook, Jan 1, 2010

The Instructional and Learning Technologies (ILT) Department in the College of Education, Sultan ... more The Instructional and Learning Technologies (ILT) Department in the College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), was established in 2005. Its mission is to achieve excellence in its provision of teaching, research and social services in the field of ILT. It offers a BA in ILT to meet the potential needs for information technology (IT) teachers and learning resources centres (LRC) specialists at both Omani basic education and general education levels. In this chapter, I will present main departmental, programme and prospective issues.