MEASURING LEARNING-RESOURCE USE

Contact time is only part of a student's learning, especially in highe r education, and teachers and lab classes are only two of the resource s students draw upon. Despite this, there isa prevalence of studies wh ich appear to be evaluating a piece of courseware in isolation. Learni ng gains from a CAL package are important, but since acquisition and r etention of knowledge is really what is ultimately important and will depend on other learning experiences in the course, an additional ques tion in any learning situation therefore is: what resources is a stude nt using? And, following up on that, which are most useful, are some b etter than others, or do they complement each other in essential ways? This paper describes the design and application of the Resource Quest ionnaire, the instrument we are developing in an attempt to gather inf ormation on the learning resources used by students. The resources ask ed about may include not only lectures, tutorials and courseware, but books, handouts, notes and discussions with other students. Some preli minary results are described and the importance of this information to leaching staff in assessing and increasing the value of the resources to students by ensuring their effective integration into a course, is discussed. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.