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POCKET Feedback Session w/e 3 October 2008

On Tuesday 30 September POCKET Content Author, Louise Buxton and I tested some of the Customer Skills units on a group of 19 students at Buxton.  The students were only three weeks into their course and were therefore very new to the university and to each other. For this reason, and because the session only lasted one hour, Louise and I thought more feedback would be gained if the students worked in groups and discussed the units together.

The session lasted one hour and took place in the computer lab at the Buxton campus. The students were split into 5 groups: 4 groups of 4 and one group of 3. Four groups looked at two units and one group looked at one unit and therefore the groups were labeled and assigned the following units:

Learner profile

  • The 19 students were all studying NVQ Level 2 in Hairdressing at University of Derby, Buxton
  • There were 2 males and 17 females
  • The ages of the students ranged from 16 right up to 35 + with the majority (almost two thirds) of the students aged 16 – 19.
  • The previous qualifications held by the majority of students (nearly 80%) was school qualifications, with 1 student having no formal qualifications and 2 students having degrees.
  • The average time spent on the Internet each week by the group was 1 – 5 hours
  • The learners used the Internet for a range of purposes: the most common being finding general information and contacting friends. Four out of the five groups said that they used the internet to help with their studies.

Feedback
The groups that looked at units that specifically concentrated on Customer Service (Introduction to Customer Service and Responding to Customer Needs) agreed that it was a subject that they were interested in, whilst the groups that looked at more data focused units (Market Research Methods, Writing a Report, Analysis and Presentation of Data) disagreed and strongly disagreed that it was a subject that they were interested in.
All groups, except for 1a, 2a and 5a, disagreed and strongly disagreed that they enjoyed learning online in this way.
There seemed to be a mixed reaction to the content of the material with a range of responses to whether the material would be relevant/helpful to their studies, and the most number of groups disagreeing that the would want to look at the material further.
The most number of groups agreed or strongly agreed that the material in the units was new to them, with only one person in one group strongly disagreeing with this.
Market Research Methods appeared to be the unit where learners picked up new skills as both groups that looked at this unit agreed with this statement.
Navigation of the units did not appear to be a problem, with all groups (except from Group 2a) agreeing or strongly agreeing that it was easy to find their way around the unit.
All groups except Group 3b and 2a agreed or strongly agreed that the information was presented clearly.
The majority of groups also agreed or strongly agreed that there was enough activities in the units, however 3 groups disagreed that there was enough variety of activities.
Most of the groups were not sure whether useful feedback was provided for all activities and only Group5 agreed with this statement.
No groups thought that the units were too easy for them: Group2 answered that both units that they assessed (Introduction to Customer Service and Analysis and Presentation of Data) were challenging as did Group 1b who assessed the unit Writing a Report.

When asked to state good points about the units the responses were fairly varied.  The most common factor, with Groups 1b, 3a and 5a mentioning this, was the large volume of information included in the units. The animations and other activities were highlighted by Groups 1a, 2b and 5a. Only Group 3b stated the fact that the units were available online and accessible from anywhere as an advantage.
When asked to state what could be improved on the units the response was much more unified and concerned the readability of the units. Groups 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b and 4a all said that the font size was too small and difficult to read. Groups 1b, 2a and 2b also added that there was a lack of space in the units, which also made it hard to read.
Many learners commented to me during the session that they were unable to fully feedback on the units because of these reasons.
Other comments included that the appearance of the units was too formal and the groups would have preferred to see more colours and more images. Only one group mentioned that having audio in the units made it difficult when access to speakers was limited.

Overall findings
There were certain limitations to how this feedback session can help evaluate the POCKET materials so far, which include:

  • Only the Customer Service module units were assessed
  • The POCKET units have been taken from Higher Education Institution material and the learners in this feedback session were just beginning to study at Further Education level.
  • The learners assessed the units in groups for reasons previously specified, however the units are designed for learners to use independently.
  • The feedback session only lasted one hour, so groups had limited time to work through the units.

Feedback to be taken forward from this session includes:

  • The units that include audio should have subtitles for when learners do not have access to speakers or headphones.
  • Readability of the units, including font size and colour and also layout, need to be looked at. Factors such as font size and colour are dictated by the OU XML Schema so cannot be changed by contributors to OpenLearn. If possible, it would be more accessible to have the option of changing the text colour and size on each page of the OpenLearn website to suit individual learners.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 @ 1:40 pm on the category Learning Technologist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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