A Critical Review

The research article “Measuring Student Participation and Effort” focuses on the effect of
students’ input on output or performance. The authors, Ian Douglas and Nicole D.
Alemanne, researchers attached to the Florida State University, posit that even well
designed courses require students to put a “reasonable amount of effort into the learning
process” if they are to receive benefit from the courses. The review of literature reveals that
most studies done on the subject focused on students in face-to-face educational mode of
learning, and though the majority of studies concluded a positive relationship between
students’ attendance and performance, a few found no such relationship. A conclusive
position on the relationship between student participation and performance is important
because of the implications for “class management and student advising.” Douglas and
Alemanne recognised the significance of this information and therefore proposed to
measure the impact of participation on the academic performance of students pursuing
online degrees.

This paper has some fundamental weaknesses even though there are areas of strength. The
organization and content of the paper present some weaknesses, which compromise the
clarity and communicative power of the paper. The authors did not make a clear statement
of purpose in the introduction, even though the rationale for carrying out the research was
implied. Clarity was further compromised in the interpretation and explanation of past
results gleaned from the literature search. This was evident in cases where the authors
assumed the reader would understand the nature of the relationship between the variables
being discussed when they wrote, “…they found relationship between tutorial attendance
and performance…”, and “…researchers found no relationship between lecture and
attendance…” Given this imprecise analysis, the reader cannot be certain if the relationships
were positive or negative relative to the variables and has to draw conclusions based on
context.

Another area of weakness is the results section. Even though tables were used to give an
appropriate visual representation of the results, they seem incomplete, thereby rendering
the results difficult to grasp. The area of greatest weakness however is the discussion
section where the researchers chose to argue the case for improving the data collection
software used for measuring student participation and performance for online courses. This
seems to be a deviation from the accustomed purpose of the discussion section of a
research paper, where the results of the findings would have been examined.

The paper has some areas of strength. It is written in clear and easy- to- understand formal
language used throughout. The choice of words, and sentence clarity lend to the easy read
of the paper. Also, the outlining of the approach to data collection was clear and
comprehensive. The researchers detailed inclusions and exclusions, in order to make clear
the precise sample group that was studied. Through an extensive review of the available
literature, Douglas and Alemanne were able to identify the gap in the body of available
research on student input and output, and therefore focused on the relationship between
these variables in the online academic community. They chose to limit their study to only
one group of students, studying their participation over the course of a semester. Given
their decision to use the discussion section to critique the “data collection and reporting
feature for online participation and performance” mechanism, the researchers felt that they
were limited by the “relatively crude measures” that were available. Further, they were not
confident in the assumption that students participated in equal measure in all the activities,
hence the unreliability of the results generated.

Since the researchers were interested in measuring participation of student in an online

environment and the impact this would have on academic performance, they defined the
parameters of “participation” and apply the appropriate tools to collect and register the
data. The choice of a single cohort of students was appropriate for the purpose of
determining whether a correlational relationship exists between participation and academic
performance. However, a wider cross-section of online groups and a longer period of study
would have been needed to be undertaken if the results were to be applied in a general
way.

The researchers’ aim to measure the impact students’ participation has on performance
recognises that the dynamic between students input and output has implication for how the
teaching-learning process is engaged. The inconclusive result shows that strong positive
correlation exists between the two, and although a coherent discussion of this relationship
was not undertaken in this paper, the suggestion for improving the data collection
mechanism could lead to a more robust testing of the theory if a wider cross-section of
online students were studied to definitively establish the relationship. Students, educators,
and the wider community that has a stake in planning and delivering education, would be
guided by the information.