Barbour, M. K., & Kinsella, J. (2001, October). Teaching university level courses to pre-university students in an online environment. Presentation at the Bits and Bytes: The Evolution of Technology in Education conference, http://www.stemnet.nf.ca:8900/public/bitsandbytes/index.html

1. Teaching University Level
Courses to Pre-University
Students in an Online
Environment
Michael K. Barbour & Jim Kinsella

2. Advanced Placement Programme
The Advanced Placement (AP) programme, which offers university
level courses to secondary school students, administers a standardised
test each Spring which determines whether or not students will be
eligible for university transfer credit.
Traditionally, AP courses are taught in a classroom setting, to a small
group of academically strong students. However, decreased
educational funding has limited this type of environment to urban
schools or large regional high schools. Even in these environments,
AP courses have usually been limited to the Mathematics and Science
courses.
The Centre for Advanced Placement Education (CAPE) is the first
initiative to offer AP Social Studies courses in an online
environment.

3. Centre for Advanced Placement Education
The Centre for Advanced Placement Education is based in Bonavista, Newfoundland, Canada. The
Centre was the creation of a group of teachers and administrators at Discovery Collegiate. While
the Centre has a physical office at Discovery Collegiate, the primary location of the Centre is on
the World Wide Web. In essence, the Centre is a virtual body.
Discovery Collegiate is the largest school within the Vista School District. The Vista School
District is a geographically large, but is the smallest district in terms of student population, rural
educational authority in the Canadian province of Newfoundland. Four years ago, through a
federal grant the District was able to establish four online AP mathematics and science courses.
This was significant, as it allowed all ten secondary schools the opportunity to offer AP courses to
their students. Prior to this, only one or two schools in the District had the needed student body to
offer traditional in-class versions of these AP courses.
Two years ago, the Vista School District supported the creation of a Centre for Advanced
Placement Education. This Centre was established to offer AP Social Studies courses in the same
way the earlier programme had offered AP mathematics and science courses.
The Centre has been designed for three purposes. The first to offer online Advanced Placement
courses, primarily in the Social Studies subject area and primarily to rural learners. The second is
to seek out funding opportunities which will allow the Centre to expand its activities, especially the
number of courses that it offers. The third is to conduct research into tele-teaching and tele-
learning.

4. Research Design
Students from two different classes participated in an online discussion
forum. At the conclusion on the course, students had to option to take
an external exam and received a score of 1 to 5 based upon a standard
curve, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
There were three different categories in the discussion forum. The
“Discussion” category was a place where students participated in a
directed, threaded discussion. The “Main” category was a place where
students would post course-related messages that weren’t part of the
directed discussion. Finally, the “DC Café” was a place for students to
discuss anything that they wanted to.
When viewing the following charts, the number of messages posted is
listed across the top of the chart and the students’ scores on the external
exam is listed along the side.

5. AP European History
The students who participated in this discussion forum over a
25 week period did so under the following conditions:
• the participation of 19 students was part of an assignment
valued at less than 5% of their final mark
•the participation of 3 students was mandatory twice weekly
and worth 15% of the students final grade
•the participation of 2 students was mandatory twice weekly
and worth 15% of the students final grade, but these students
only participated for the final 18 weeks
•the participation of 1 student was entirely optional and not
worth any of their final mark

6. AP European History
All categories
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 > 50
5 3 2 1
4 1 3 1
3 3 3
2 1 1 1
1 1 1
- 2 1
Discussion category
0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 26-30
5 1 2 3
4 1 1 3
3 2 2 2
2 1 1 1
1 1 1
- 1 1 1

7. AP Human Geography
The students who participated in this discussion forum over
a 26 week period did so under the following conditions:
• the participation of 15 students was part of a mandatory
assignment that was worth approximately 10% of the
students’ final mark
•the participation of 5 students was mandatory twice weekly
and worth 15% of the students final grade

8. AP Human Geography
All categories
0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 > 50
5 2 1
4 1 1 1
3
2 1 2
1 1 2
- 3 1 2 1 1
Discussion category
0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 > 26
5 2 1
4 2 1
3
2 1 1 1
1 1 2
- 2 1 1 4

9. Research Summary
Excluding the students whose participation was
mandatory, the following trends were noticed:
• in both classes, students who participated more
scored better on the external exam than students who
participated less
• lack of participation did not guarantee a poor score,
no more than a large amount of participation
guaranteed a high score (as seen by the participation
and scores of the students’ whose participation was
mandatory)

10. Similar Research
Collins and Barbour, in their research on the use of e-mail and
web-based discussion forums in second-year university Biology
courses have found that:
•there is a clear relationship between Web forum use and letter
grade attained
•only “A”s were very frequent users, while only “A”s and “B”s
were frequent users
•“C”s, “D”s, and “F”s were either infrequent users or non-users
•“A”s were more likely to be users (21 of 42) than “B”s (12 of
29), who in turn were more likely to be users than those
attaining lower letter grades (7 of 20)

11. Similar Research
Based upon their findings Collins and Barbour have
speculated that students who write about their subject
learn that subject better. (Ambron) (Kurfiss) Moore,
for example, has shown the connection between
writing in Biology and higher course scores as others
have demonstrated for other subject areas… Postings
on the Web forum are ‘public’ and open to the
scrutiny of all the class members. Students then are
more likely to be careful and deliberate about what
they write on the Web forum… because they are for
public consumption, and especially discussion items.

12. Conclusions
There are some general conclusions which can be drawn:
• students who write about a subject learn that subject better
• participation in an open discussion forum forces students to
write about a subject
• students who participate in online discussion forums tend to
perform better than students who are non-users of the online
discussion forums
Main question for future research:
Do better students participate more in online discussion
forums or do students who participate more in online
discussion forums perform better?

13. Bibliography
Ambron, J. “Writing to improve learning in Biology,” Journal of
College Science Teaching. vol. XVI, no. 4, pp. 263-266, 1987.
Collins, M & Barbour, M. “Some observations on student use of
electronic communications,” International Conference on Advances in
Infrastructure for E-Business, Science, and Education on the Internet.
L'Aquila, Italy: Scuola Superiore G. Reiss Romoli (SSGRR), August
2001.
Kurfiss, J. “Do students really learn from writing?” Writing Across the
Curriculum. vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 3-4, 1985.
Moore, R. “Does writing about science improve learning about
science?” Journal of College Science Teaching. vol. XXII, no. 4, pp.
212-217, 1993.