Speaking of efficacy and the complexity of measuring it, I had an interesting conversation the other day with Danae Hudson, a professor of Psychology at Missouri State University, about a course redesign effort that she participated in. The initial contact came from a P.R. firm hired by Pearson. Phil and I get a lot of these and turn down most of them. This one interested me for several reasons. First, it was an opportunity to talk directly to a faculty member who was involved in the project. (A tip to all you P.R. folks out there: You will have a better chance of getting our attention when the focus of the call is to put us in direct contact with your customers about what they are achieving.) Second, the project was facilitated by The National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT). I am a big fan of NCAT’s work, despite the fact that they seem to have an almost pathological urge to sabotage efforts to bring their work the attention that they deserve. Pearson’s interest lab in the call was that MyPsychLab was an integral part of the course redesign. My interest was to see what I could learn about the interaction between educational technology products and educational practices in delivering educational efficacy.
What I heard tended to confirm my suspicions (and common sense): Educational technology products can produce significant learning gains, but they often doing so by supporting changes in classroom practices.