Evaluation of the EuroMET Web-Based Course in Meteorology

The EuroMET (European Meteorological Education and Training) project was created to address the education and training needs of professional meteorologists and students in tertiary education throughout Europe and more widely. Two courses, each modular in format, have been developed for the World Wide Web. The courses have been evaluated at three key points during their development for their usability, scientific content, and perceived pedagogical worth. By performing the evaluation in this way, recommendations for improvement could be made to the developers, the improvements incorporated, and all modifications fully tested before the course was considered ready for use. The final versions of the courses are currently undergoing a summative evaluation as they are used in real teaching and training environments. This paper describes the evaluation methods used during the project and the results obtained thus far. A table presents data on improvement in test scores before and after users complete a module. (Author/DLS) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************************************** Evaluation of the EuroMET Web-Based Course in Meteorology U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 3 This document has been reproduced as , received from the person or organization originating it. 3 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Julia Phelps and Ross Reynolds Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK. Email: [email protected], [email protected]. Abstract: EuroMET has been created to address the education and training needs of professional meteorologists and students in tertiary education throughout Europe and more widely. Two courses, each modular in format, have been developed for the WWW. The courses have been evaluated at three key points during their development for their usability, scientific content and perceived pedagogical worth. By performing the evaluation in this way, recommendations for improvement could be made to the developers, these improvements incorporated, and all modifications fully tested before the course was considered ready for use. The final versions of the courses are currently undergoing a summative evaluation as they are used in real teaching and training environments. This paper describes the evaluation methods used during this project and the results obtained thus far. EuroMET has been created to address the education and training needs of professional meteorologists and students in tertiary education throughout Europe and more widely. Two courses, each modular in format, have been developed for the WWW. The courses have been evaluated at three key points during their development for their usability, scientific content and perceived pedagogical worth. By performing the evaluation in this way, recommendations for improvement could be made to the developers, these improvements incorporated, and all modifications fully tested before the course was considered ready for use. The final versions of the courses are currently undergoing a summative evaluation as they are used in real teaching and training environments. This paper describes the evaluation methods used during this project and the results obtained thus far.