Comparing Traditional and ICT-Enriched University Teaching Methods: Evidence from Two Empirical Studies

Abstract

One of the best ways of incentivating the use of ICTs as university teaching tools is by providing clear evidence that this technology helps to increase educational benefits, i.e., that students learn more and more effectively – in conditions of equivalent efforts by both teachers and students. The point, however, is that little has been reported on the specific impact of Web enhancements on classroom activities – the face-to-face component of traditional courses – and the nature of that impact. This contribution is intended to publish some evidence based on two well-documented experiments on the use of the Campus Global, the e-learning platform for undergraduate, traditional face-to-face courses introduced at the Pompeu Fabra University as early as 1998. The first analyses the failures that often accompany the introduction of ICTs into traditional teaching. The second describes the results of an experiment aimed at comparing the academic performance of two equivalent groups of students of the same subject, one receiving ordinary, lecture-based teaching and the other being taught with the novel use of ICTs. Finally, the results are discussed and future lines of research are proposed. Although the use of technology in web-based forms of higher education has grown exponentially in the past decade, 1 it is becoming increasingly obvious that traditional