Evaluation of Distance-Learning Environments: Impact of Usability on Student Performance
Nikolaos M. Avouris, Angélique Dimitracopoulou, Sophia Daskalaki, Nikolaos K. Tselios · International journal of educational telecommunications · 2001
Experimental results of usability evaluation of a distance learning system are presented in this paper. An experiment is described that took place in the frame of a University course. The main goal of the experiment was to evaluate the usability of the Testing and Self-evaluation component of the system. A complementary research goal was to explore the eventual impact of system usability on student performance. For this purpose, two alternative software components were compared that shared similar functionality, implemented in different ways (IDLE, WebCT). The usability evaluation was based on user questionnaires. From this experiment correlation between the software usability and student performance has emerged, underlining the importance of usability evaluation of systems supporting distance learning.