Research Article Critique

Hove, M.C. & Corcoran, K.J. (2008) Educational technologies: Impacts on learning and
frustration. Teaching of Psychology, 35(2), pp. 121-125

Summary

With little, and even conflicting research on technology and learning at that time, the

research study conducted by Hove, M.C., and Corcoran, K.J. (2008), sought to expand the

understanding and relationship between levels of learner frustration and a variety of teaching

methods and sought to establish a comparison of their pedagogical effectiveness on teaching and

learner outcomes. Comparing traditional lecture (TL) slide-show lecture (SSL) and virtual learning

environments (VLE) the results of this study demonstrate that both SSL and VLE teaching

methods presented higher learning outcomes when compared to a traditional lecture approach.

However, with regards to learner frustration, while there were no significant differences between

TL and SSL teaching methods, VLE demonstrated highest levels of frustration among those in the

study. Before fully embracing VLE teaching methods, more research is required to better

understand the variables and weaknesses of VLE and root causes of learner frustrations.
 Introduction

In this study, researchers Hove, M.C. and Corcoran, K.J. make it clear that there is little

existing research in the field of technology and learning, specifically in the realm of comparative

research between learning outcomes from differing teaching methodologies and pedagogies;

furthermore, current research studies are in conflict in their findings. For this reason, their study

is completely explorative in nature. The educational significance of this study is discussed in that

their findings will shed light in the field of education, and through proper research design, reveal

relevant outcomes that will ultimately benefit academic institutions, their instructors, and the

learners whom consume the content. In attempting to better understand learner frustrations

and learning outcomes, the review of existing literature was extensive and relevant to their study.

Sources cited in their review were primary sources and included one specific Learning

Management System (LMS) called BeachBoard. As they indicated, review from the various cited

sources highlight the conflicting results from previous findings. Literature review findings ranged

from TL teaching producing greater learning outcomes when compared to SSL; SSL producing no

academic gains over TL; student preference of SSL over TL teaching methods and self-reported

benefit to their learning in the classroom. From an approach to pedagogy of VLE, the reviewed

literature also found mixed results that indicate VLE student learners performed worse than TL

instruction and experienced greater levels of confusion and decreased learner satisfaction; thus,

illustrating the misunderstood current state of VLE and their learning outcomes. Therefore, the

specific question this research sought to explore was to understand self-reported student

frustration levels in the three teaching methodology conditions and create a pedagogical

comparison between these approaches by measure of learning outcomes by each condition.

 Method

For this study, researchers obtained a total of 154 participants, with 78 women and 76

men respectively, and 90.26% ranging between 18 and 24 years of age. In return for their 2-hour

participation, all participants received credit for their psychology class. The researchers recruited

participants with the help of the Psychology department from the Midwestern university in which

the study was conducted. This means the study utilized a convenience sampling method, which

increases the odds of obtaining a biased sample as there was no attempt made to randomly select

participants in this process; likely because convenience sampling is less time consuming and

inexpensive to conduct. Furthermore, because the sample consists of college students, this is a

threat to external validity as the characteristics of this accessible population should not be

generalized to the population at large. However, researchers attempted to control for bias by

ensuring a cross-section of students by accounting for gender and provided a description of the

sample population with regards to age. More importantly, the researchers do not claim to

generalize their results outside of the sample. Lastly, each condition consisted an average of fifty-

one participants, which is in favor to the law of large numbers and thus, each condition is more

likely to accurately represent the population.

Procedure

In groups ranging in size from 5-15, all participants provided informed consent, completed

an academic pretest, and a demographic questionnaire; conditions that helped easily satisfy IRB

approval. Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental

conditions (TL, SSL, and VLE) and presented with a forty-minute lecture presentation in the

format of their assigned condition. After which, participants were subject to a posttest to
measure their learning outcomes followed by a second measure to asses to their frustration

levels using a version of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Task Load Index, an

instrument that comes with high reliability. Furthermore, the fifteen questions presented in the

pre- and post-test were divided from a pool of thirty questions chosen by the researchers based

on relevancy, then randomly assigned to each condition; thus, counterbalancing the results for

learning outcomes obtained from the participants. By requiring a pretest and posttest and

randomly assigning the groups of questions to each condition, the researchers used an

appropriate design to explore this area of research. The design lends itself to strictly explore the

possibilities of differing learning outcomes for each condition while measuring the associated

levels of their frustration for each level. Additionally, by providing a review period and a ten-

minute break, this ensured mental fatigue does not affect the results of their findings. However,

instrument coefficients and confounding variables were not discussed in their research.

Results

Appropriate inferential statistics were presented in this study as demonstrated via the

univariate ANOVAs that were conducted from the obtained data. It was established that there

were no significant differences between the conditions with regards to participants age, year in

school, or performance on academic pretests. Furthermore, using Fisher’s Least Significant

Difference (LSD) measure found significant differences by learning outcomes between TL and

VLE, and SSL and TL conditions; however, there was no significant difference between SSL and

VLE. The results indicated that both SSL and VLE produced greater learning outcomes when

compared to TL teaching methods. With regards to frustration levels, ANOVA statistics also found

that self-reported frustration levels were highest among those in the VLE condition; however,
there was no significant difference between TL and SSL conditions. The descriptive statistics table

presented in their research further illustrate research findings for both learning outcomes and

frustration levels and was appropriately captioned to give the data context and meaning; this

was helpful to review as a summary of their results.

Discussion

The researchers present their data as it relates to the purpose of exploration and were

clear to state that their findings were contradictory to the results of previous studies that did not

find significant differences between SSL and VLE when compared to TL teaching conditions.

Findings were generalized amongst the college students, and not to a greater population; thus,

consistent with the results and purpose of this research study. In their discussion section, the

researchers attempt to explain why the differences in learning outcomes exist, hypothesizing

that VLE and SSL teaching conditions do not allow for passive learning; thus, create an engaging

and visually stimulating learning environment that leads to higher learning outcomes.

Researchers further suggest that the age of learners may have influenced the results are they are

more accustomed to visually stimulation (e.g. video games, television, and computers). Naturally,

these hypotheses are recommendations for future areas of research and exploration. A coding

limitation was also discussed. The researchers of this study conclude that, while their findings

indicate incorporation of technology lead to higher learning outcomes, pedagogy must remain

the leader in the classroom. They go-on to suggest that high levels of frustration among VLE

teaching methods may easily be remedied with robust instructor guidance, feedback and

purposeful design; after-all, teachers were never meant to be replaced by computers and

instructor skill can only be enhanced by incorporation of such technologies and pedagogies.