Work in progress - assessment of an electronic learning management system In bioengineering

The VaNTH Engineering Research Center (www.vanth.org) has developed an authoring system for electronic courseware (CAPE) that links to a learning management system (eLMS). The system provides formative feedback, adaptive delivery, and feedback to the instructor about student conceptions. We used the system to deliver two problems in a biomedical engineering systems physiology course. Half the class (treatment) used CAPE/eLMS and the other half (control) completed the problems in a traditional paper-and-pencil format. This study evaluated students´ performance on the problems and on summative (exam) questions as well as students´ perceptions. Students enjoyed one of the problems more and the other less via the CAPE/eLMS system. Students in control and treatment groups performed equally well on summative assessments. Technical and programming difficulties have been addressed and more data will be collected in Spring, 2007. The tentative conclusion is that an adaptive learning system can be beneficial, but the benefits may be problem-dependent to some extent.