Web-based Learning: Relationships among Student Motivation, Attitude, Learning Styles, and Achievement

This study analyzed the relationships between student achievement and the following variables: attitude, motivation, learning styles, and selected demographics. This population study included 99 students taking two web-based courses offered by the college of agriculture at a land grant university. Seventy-four (75%) students completed a learning style test, an on-line questionnaire, and received a grade by the end of the semester. The learning style test was the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), which classified students as either field-dependent or field-independent. The on-line questionnaire consisted of two scales (motivation and attitude), whose pilot-test reliabilities were .71 and .91, respectively. Over two-thirds of the students taking the web-based courses were field-independent learners; however, there were no significant differences (.05 level) in achievement between field-dependent and field-independent students. Also, students with different learning styles and backgrounds learned equally well in web-based courses. The students enjoyed the convenience and self-controlled learning pace and were motivated by competition and high expectations in web-based learning. Motivation was the only significant factor that explained more than one-fourth of student achievement measured by class grade. Introduction and Theoretical Framework As the population of the World Wide Web (WWW) increases, its use as a means of delivering instruction is also growing. Several researchers (Parson, 1998; Alexander, 1995; Miller, 1995a & 1995b) argued that while implementing a new technology, educators should evaluate how and why students learn via the new technology in order to help with curriculum and instructional designs. Additionally, Parson (1998) stressed the importance of understanding how the new technology can affect learning when it is used by different types of learners. Identifying students’ learning styles helps educators understand how people perceive and process information in different ways. According to Cano, Garton, and Raven (1992), one of the most widely studied learning style theories contrasts field-dependence and field-independence. Several studies (Annis, 1979; Moore & Dwyer, 1992; Ronning, McCurdy, & Ballinger, 1984) have shown that fieldindependent people tend to outperform fielddependent people in various settings. However, in their study related to the effects of learning styles on achievement in a WWW course, Day, Raven, and Newman (1997) found learning styles had no effect on student achievement or attitudes toward Web-based instruction, which echoes the findings of the study on learning styles in a hypermedia environment conducted by Liu and Reed (1994). The taxonomy of learning styles developed by Curry (1990) used the concepts of learning styles, student achievement, and motivation to explain the process of learning. Learning styles consist of a combination of motivation, engagement, and cognitive processing habits, which then influence the use of metacognitve skills such as situation analysis, self-pacing, and self-evaluation to produce a learning outcome. Curry’s taxonomy (1990) suggested that motivation, learning styles, and student achievement are associated. Journal of Agricultural Education 12 Volume 42, Issue 4, 2001 Shih & Gamon Web-Based Learning: Relationships... Motivation influences how and why people learn as well as how they perform (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). Motivation was found to be the best predictor of student achievement in the two studies that investigated factors influencing student achievement and effects of the factors on students’ achievement in learning the Japanese language through the medium of satellite television (Oxford, Park-Oh, Ito, & Sumrall, 1993a; 1993b). Moreover, in the study on predicting student success with the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI), Hendrickson (1997) found that motivation and attitude were the best predictors of student grade point average. Based on this literature review, student learning styles, motivation, and attitude seem to be associated with achievement. Research is needed to understand the relationship between student achievement and the motivation and attitude of students who have different learning styles. Also, research is needed to obtain more understanding of the learning factors that influence student success in web-based learning. This type of research will assist educators in planning, organizing, and delivering quality web-based instruction in a manner that will improve student learning. Purpose and Objectives The purpose of this study was to determine how student motivation, attitude, and learning styles influenced achievement in web-based courses. The objectives of the study were to identify: (a) the demographic characteristics of the students in relation to learning styles, (b) differences in student motivation, attitude, and achievement in relation to learning styles, and (c) relationships among student achievement, motivation, attitude, learning styles, and selected variables in web-based learning. Methods and Procedures The population for this study included 99 students taking two non-major biology introductory courses, Zoology 155 and Biology 109, offered by the College of Agriculture at a land grant university. These two web-based courses were stand-alone courses in which most course materials and resources were accessed and delivered by the Internet. More than 60% (60) of the population were on-campus students, and almost 40% (39) were off-campus students. Thirty-two of the 39 off-campus students were high school students. Before the study was conducted, a letter was sent to the high school teachers to seek permission for their students to participate in this study. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was used to determine preferred learning styles, either as field-dependent (FD) or field-independent (FI). Individuals scoring higher than the national mean (11.4) were classified as field-independent learners, whereas those scoring lower than the national mean were considered to prefer a field-dependent style. The total possible raw score on the GEFT was 18. The reliability coefficient for the GEFT was .82 (Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971). An on-line questionnaire was designed by the researchers and included two scales plus demographic questions. The questionnaire, written in the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) format, was posted on the web. Nine statements representing the motivational scale were selected from the Motivation Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich and his colleagues at University of Michigan (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). The students were asked to rate themselves according to how well the statements described them while they were taking the web-based course by using a five-point scale with response options ranging from (1) Not at all typical of me to (5) Very much typical of me. The researchers modified the attitude scale that was used in Miller’s (1995b) study on assessing professional agricultural degree program graduates’ attitudes toward videotaped instruction. As a result, 11 statements were developed. The five point Likert-type scale had response options ranging from (1) Strong Disagree to (5) Strong Agree. Demographic variables included web-based courses students were taking (Zoology 105 or Biology 109), types of students as off-campus or on-campus students, whether or not they were university students, number of previous Journal of Agricultural Education 13 Volume 42, Issue 4, 2001 Shih & Gamon Web-Based Learning: Relationships... courses taken in the subject area, limited or unlimited computer access, study and work hours per week, and gender. Content and face validity for the questionnaire were established by a panel of three faculty members associated with the college of agriculture and three graduate students in agricultural education. The scales were pilot-tested for reliability with 38 students taking a different undergraduate web-based course, Biology 201. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .71 and .91 for the motivation and attitude scales, respectively. The researchers administered the learning style test (GEFT) to on-campus students, and proctors administered it to offcampus students. A total of 78 (79%) students completed the GEFT. An on-line questionnaire was posted on the web three weeks before the final exams. A follow-up electronic letter to nonrespondents of the online questionnaire yielded a total of 94 responses for a 95% return rate. Instructors provided grades for all students at the end of the semester, and these were used as a measure of achievement. For purposes of analysis, the learning style scores, questionnaire responses, and students’ grades were matched. This yielded a final response rate of 74 (75%), which was considered to be an acceptable representation of the population. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science, Personal Computer Version (SPSSx/PC). Analyses of data included frequencies, means, standard deviations, ttests, Pearson correlations, and regressions. The alpha level was established a priori at the .05 level. Results Objective 1: Demographics of the students in relation to learning styles Table 1 displays demographic data of the respondents by learning style type. The usable responses included 29 (39%) in the Zoology class and 45 (61%) in the Biology class. Less than half (29; 39%) of the usable respondents were males. Twenty-eight (38%) were high school students and fortysix (62%) were university students. Fortyfive (61%) students had unlimited access to a computer; whereas twenty-nine students could only access a computer at a set time. More than two thirds (51; 69%) of the respondents were field-independent learners. On average, the students had previously taken 1.45 courses in the subject area of Zoology or Biology (Table 2). The students spent an average of 4.55 hours per week studying, ranging from 1 to 20 hours and worked an average of 16.97 hours per week, ranging from 0 to 80 hours. No significant differences by learning styles were found in the number of courses taken previously, study hours per week, or work hours per week. Respondents’ learning style scores were compared by gender (Table 3). It was found that the male learning style mean score (mean = 14.07) was significantly higher than the female mean score (mean = 11.76). The learning style mean score of all respondents was 12.66. This was consistent with the preliminary norm data on GEFT, in which college men (mean = 12.00) performed slightly but significantly higher than college women (mean = 10.8) (Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971). However, in this study, the GEFT mean scores of both males and females were higher than those of the norm data (mean = 11.4). Table 1 Description of Field-Dependent (FD) and Field-Independent (FI) Respondents by Class, Student Type, Class level, Access to Computer, and Gender (n = 74)