Are e-learning tools actually useful? Assessing the effect of online learning resources on student outcomes

• Main Authors: PATEL, Hisham, TAN, Swee Liang
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research; Higher Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2778; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/3777/viewcontent/Are_e_learning_tools_actually_useful.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper tests to see if the usage of online learning resources affects student outcome, in an Economics of Globalisation course, taught over 2 consecutive terms. Outcome is measured by overall score obtained in the final examination. We adopted two different measures of the usage of online learning resources; partial participation, and full participation. The results show that partial participation does not improve final score while full participation improves final score by 6.4 marks (out of 100). The results also show that the overall score improvements are largely driven by score improvement in the essay component of the final examination, as opposed to the Multiple-Choice Question (MCQ) component of the examination.