AGE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EVALUATING THE PEDAGOGICAL USABILITY OF E-LEARNING MATERIALS
Vol.5, Issue 2, 2019, pp.169-186 Full text
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.19.2.0
Web of Science: 000512305100002
Authors:
Liubomir Djalev https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8016-8051
Affiliation: New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria 002qhr126
Stanislav Bogdanov https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7144-1044
Affiliation: New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria 002qhr126
Contributor roles
Conceptualization: S.B. (lead);
Investigation: L.D., S.B. (equal);
Methodology: L.D.(lead);
Data curation: S.B. (lead);
Formal Analysis: L.D. (lead); S.B. (supporting)
Writing original draft: L.D., S.B. (equal);
Writing - review and editing: L.D., S.B. (equal);
Abstract
The purpose of the study is to examine the pedagogical usability of interactive e-learning materials for foreign language practice. It is based upon two studies of expected between-group and within-group differences among participants in the educational process. The sample consists of two groups - lecturers and students, a total of 100 participants, each evaluating four materials specifically prepared for this study. Two consecutive repeated measures ANOVA were conducted in which the gender/age, the position of the participants in the educational process, and usability dimensions were the independent variables. Results indicated that all independent variables and their interactions have a significant effect on the evaluations of the pedagogical usability. Women tend to assign higher values than men. Age groups generally differ in their evaluations, although there is a tendency to give similar ratings for the individual dimensions of pedagogical usability. The 31-40 years age group evaluates the materials higher while the lowest evaluations are given by the groups of 21-30 and 50+ years old participants. Students tend to rate the pedagogical usability systematically higher than the lecturers. Usability dimensions also have a significant effect on evaluations. The most prominent feature of the materials, by a great margin, is their Applicability. the findings corroborate previous research which show age and gender differences in web usability do exist. We conclude that these differences exist as much in pedagogical usability as in technical usability. Further investigations are suggested to explore more deeply the differences in the perceived pedagogical value of e-learning materials as this has implications for instructional designers, teachers and learners alike.
Keywords: pedagogical usability, e-learning, foreign language teaching, instructional design, age differences, gender differences
Article history:
Submitted: 15 November 2019;
Reviewed: 4 December 2019;
Revised: 6 December 2019;
Accepted: 7 December 2019;
Published: 30 December 2019
Citation (APA):
Djalev, L., & Bogdanov, S. (2019). Age and Gender Differences in Evaluating the Pedagogical Usability of E-Learning Materials. English Studies at NBU, 5(2), 169-189. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.19.2.0
Copyright © 2019 Liubomir Djalev and Stanislav Bogdanov
This open access article is published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. If you want to use the work commercially, you must first get the authors' permission.
Open Data
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Data for this study are available under a CC-BY-NC 3.0 license at Mendeley Data.
Also in the References.
Bogdanov, S. (2019). Age and Gender Differences in Evaluating the Pedagogical Usability of E-Learning Materials (v1) ['Data set']. Mendeley Data. https://doi.org/10.17632/tzfdvz366g.2
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Handling Editor: Boris Naimushin
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