With the University’s switch from the ANGEL Learning Management System (LMS) to Canvas, various research studies have been conducted with students from the College of IST and around Penn State to learn more about student preferences and interactions with Canvas.
Amy Garbrick, Director of the College of IST Learning Design group, and Ronda Reid, instructional designer, have been working with others across Penn State to study how students interact with Canvas. One research study recently produced results on student design preferences in Canvas, namely on the Canvas home page, syllabus, and nagivation.
The study, the Canvas User Survey, went out to 4,900 World Campus students including those from the College of IST, resulting in 743 survey views, 516 completed surveys, and an additional 50 partially completed surveys for an overall response rate of slightly more than 10%. It took participants an average of 21 minutes to complete. Those who participated were eligible to win one of 5 gift certificates to Amazon.com (provided by our good friends at Penn State’s Information Technology Services (ITS)–Thanks!).
The Study’s Executive Summary follows, but feel free to contact us if you’d like to see the full report.
Executive Summary
Purpose
The intent of this study was to gain a sense of design preferences of students and to provide a set of recommendations and best practices for course designers working in the Canvas LMS at Penn State. Students taking a course in Canvas with the World Campus in Spring 2016 were surveyed regarding these preferences.
Course Home Page in Canvas
In comparing student perceptions of the various pages’ ability to inspire engagement, of attractiveness, helpfulness in finding what is needed, and overall usefulness, the MOST preferred was Modules. The Syllabus and Recent Activity pages were relatively evenly preferred. The least preferred was the Welcome page. Whatever page is used as Home Page, the most important things to see there are (1) due dates, (2) the course outline, and (3) timely instructions.
There is no significant difference among the eight colleges in terms of preference of the four alternatives, but the Home page using Modules is what most students preferred. When viewing the Syllabus, the Course Schedule is most important to students and there is no significant difference among the eight colleges.
Comparing between courses, the Home page, the top three items to see on there are: due dates, timely instructions, and a course outline. However, there is no significant difference among the seven courses. In terms of preference of the four alternatives, the Home page using Modules is what students prefer.
Syllabus
Of the three Syllabus alternative views, Syllabus View B was clearly most preferred. Views A and C were rated about equal, with only 0.04 difference in their rating means. This indicates that students prefer the BRIEF TEXT WITH LINKS VIEW to full text elsewhere, with Schedule/Agenda containing assignment due dates close to the top. Student respondents say they typically access the Syllabus page for a course at least a few times per semester to weekly and more than 80% of the students said it is VERY important that the Course Schedule be easy to find and be printable.
Most important to see in the Syllabus was the Course Schedule, any Grading Weights, the Grading Scale, and the List of Course Materials. The most important components in the Course Schedule itself were Due Dates, Assignments, and Lesson Date Ranges.
Navigation
“Assignments” was the most important item to have on the Navigation menu, followed by Grades and Modules. Students felt they did not need to see Files, Pages, Conferences, or People in a Navigation menu and were least sure of the meaning of the Pages or Conferences items.
Sense of Community
The majority of the students felt the Nittany Lion graphic gave them a sense of inclusion in the larger Penn State community, but interaction with the instructor and classmates also contributed.