What Makes an Effective Educational Website?

Andrew Maul

What Makes an Effective Educational Website?

Introduction In todays day of age during the technology revolution websites are often

used as learning devices in classrooms. Naturally though some websites are bound to be better then others. The real question though is what makes each website better then the other? The answer to this question is not as simple as you might think. There are a lot of components that make up a website besides just it content. For example what good is all of the content on the website if you have now way to find what you are looking for.

The first part in determining what makes an affective educational website is defining what is an effective website. For the purposes of this experiment an effective educational is a website that enables the student to learn the material in an easy, simple and effective way. To judge what makes an effective website I defined categories that a website must be good at in order to be effective. The categories I came up with are:

1. Quality of the content. 2. Pertinence of the content. 3. Presentation of the website and its contents. 4. Effective use of interactive elements. 5. Ease of navigating the website and finding content. 6. How interesting was the website. These qualifications were selected based on what a student will expect to do once they go to the website, and how will it will be accomplished. One key

- 1 -

Andrew Maul

feature that website are able to offer over traditional means is interactivity. With interactivity students are able to gain a new insight into the subject.

Methods Upon review of approximately twenty different educational websites

geared at children in middle school five websites among them were tested for this study. These sites are:

? BrainPOP () ? Cool Science for Curious Kids () ? Mathematical Ideas in Science

() ? Exploratorium () ? The Atoms Family ()

They were chosen because they represented a good variety of the websites chosen in a few select categories. These include age of intended audience, interactivity, layout and navigation of site, and content area of the website.

To test these websites an anonymous survey with eight questions using a Likert scale was handed out to approximately 80 middle school science students at Briarcliff High School. They randomly choose a website from a list to complete the survey about. In total 191 surveys total were collected from the students about the five different websites. For each of the eight statements below the students were asked to circle on a scale of one to five how strongly they agreed with the statement, one being strongly disagree and five being strongly agree.

1. This site was overall very effective at teaching you the subject. 2. The information on the site was organized and easy to find.

- 2 -

Andrew Maul

3. The information on the site was presented very well. 4. The interactive elements helped you learn better. 5. The interactive elements helped you visualize the subject. 6. The site was very easy to use and navigate. 7. The information on the site was geared to your age level. 8. I would strongly recommend this site for people interested in this

subject. These questions were asked to gauge how well students thought the website did in a few specific categories, and overall. With these results

Data The number of completed surveys received for each site: BrainPOP ? 45 Exploratorium ? 38 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? 35 The Atoms Family ? 35 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? 38

Questions One: This site was overall very effective at teaching you the subject.

BrainPOP ? Average: 4.02, Standard Deviation: 0.965 Exploratorium ? Average: 4.21, Standard Deviation: 0.905 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? Average: 3.34, Standard Deviation: 1.305 The Atoms Family ? Average: 3.60, Standard Deviation: 1.142

- 3 -

Andrew Maul Cool Science for Curious Kids ? Average: 2.97, Standard Deviation: 1.102

Questions Two: The information on the site was organized and easy to find.

BrainPOP ? Average: 4.24, Standard Deviation: 1.069 Exploratorium ? Average: 3.92, Standard Deviation: 0.912 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? Average: 3.06, Standard Deviation: 1.136 The Atoms Family ? Average: 3.49, Standard Deviation: 1.067 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? Average: 2.89, Standard Deviation: 1.203

Questions Three: The information on the site was presented very well. BrainPOP ? Average: 4.24, Standard Deviation: .0981 Exploratorium ? Average: 4.24, Standard Deviation: 0.883 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? Average: 3.17, Standard Deviation: 1.124 The Atoms Family ? Average: 3.37, Standard Deviation: 1.003 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? Average: 2.76, Standard Deviation: 1.051

Questions Four: The information on the site was presented very well. BrainPOP ? Average: 3.64, Standard Deviation: 1.190 Exploratorium ? Average: 4.05, Standard Deviation: 0.957 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? Average: 3.17, Standard Deviation: 1.317 The Atoms Family ? Average: 3.57, Standard Deviation: 1.220 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? Average: 2.61, Standard Deviation: 1.366 The number of completed surveys received for each site:

- 4 -

Andrew Maul BrainPOP ? 45 Exploratorium ? 38 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? 35 The Atoms Family ? 35 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? 38

Questions Five: The interactive elements helped you visualize the subject.. BrainPOP ? Average: 3.87, Standard Deviation: 1.014 Exploratorium ? Average: 4.16, Standard Deviation: 0.886 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? Average: 3.11, Standard Deviation: 1.183 The Atoms Family ? Average: 3.2, Standard Deviation: 1.208 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? Average: 2.79, Standard Deviation: 1.379

Questions Six: The site was very easy to use and navigate BrainPOP ? Average: 4.16, Standard Deviation: 1.107 Exploratorium ? Average: 3.92, Standard Deviation: 0.882 Mathematical Ideas in Science ? Average: 3.14, Standard Deviation: 1.264 The Atoms Family ? Average: 3.26, Standard Deviation: 1.172 Cool Science for Curious Kids ? Average: 2.95, Standard Deviation: 1.229

Questions Seven: The information on the site was geared to your age level.

BrainPOP ? Average: 3.91, Standard Deviation: 1.184 Exploratorium ? Average: 4.32, Standard Deviation: 0.842

- 5 -

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download