Thank you for your paper.  Papers with a lot of data are not always easy for me to read.  

The topic is a good one.  I teach on-line and in the syllabus students are required to respond to two Discussion Questions per week.  I always respond to their posts with an additional question intended to push their initial response further.   Sometimes it is a clarification question that I would then affirm or continue to push on.   Sometimes it is a question that seeks to add information to the initial response.  

In the class I teach I have tried adding questions that would fit the CAT requirement but either I do not phrase the question right or do not post it right in the discussion forum and I get few responses.   I judge that the students feel that they are already fulfilling the minimum requirement and do not need to do anything more.

I am not sure where this all fits into your study, but there is sense that when requirements are set for students and faculty we tend to work on what minimally satisfies the requirement than what would go beyond it.   That might be another study.

Again thank you for your paper.

Dr. Vernon Meyer, PhD 

Thank you for your research. I am an online instructor and find that CATs responses and interactions vary from subject to subject. There have been times where all the CATs I utilize are answered, and then in some, I only get one or two responses. However, I agree and fully support your findings because it is an appropriate engagement tool for the online format. I am glad that you did a follow-up study to understand why faculty uses CATs in the first place. I am still left captivated as I would like to know, as a possible follow up research or extending your current study, what institutions of the study participants require the use of CATs versus those that utilize it on their own.

Be well.

Thank you, Drs. Meyer and Ruelas for the positive feedback! We also feel that CATs are an important topic and are applicable to not only traditional classrooms but also online classrooms. Thank you as well for the future study suggestions. For example, looking at the effort put into CATs, instead of whether they used it or not, seem to be a great future study. Our Study 2 may answer part of this question, but a follow-up study is definitely warranted. Thank you, Dr. Meyer! 

Regarding your questions, Dr. Ruelas, the institutes our participants belonged to are all 4-year college. You are right that different institutions may require different applications of CATs. This is, again, another great future study topic. 

We will incorporate these future directions in our manuscript. Thank you for the contribution. We appreciate that! 

Hello Colleagues,

Thank you for providing an interesting study comparing the differences and similarities between traditional and online faculty in their use of Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs).  As an adjunct online instructor, I like to know ways I can improve student learning for our online students.

 I have used CATs in higher education institutions that require the use of CATs and some that do not.  In both cases, I used CATs for several reasons such as, CATs expand learning of the weekly course objectives, allows me to bring in different media such as videos, current articles and the like to assist students with different learning styles,  helps the adult learner focus their learning on relevant information, therefore making better use of their limited time, and most of my CATs focus on helping student build on soft skills needed in the management of people.

Extending the future studies to teach and learning for faculty would be helpful around techniques to analyze the effectiveness of individual CATs.  How to use the information shared by students to help further learning into the next weeks of the course.  Connect learning by acquiring feedback from students using End-of-Course Surveys (EOCS).

Blessings,

Charlotte C. Johnson, D.M.

Hi Drs. Li & Lieu,

I found your study both interesting and enlightening. I have used CAT’s consistently and extensively in my online classrooms and have found their use a great tool for extending and deeping the conversation. Your article, and the examples, provided food for thought on how to better use CAT’s consciously during a course.

Three things stood out to me as I read you writing:

1) The sample scope should be broadened to incude more majors in both studies 1 & 2. Restricting the interviews to one discipline is somewhat limiting in applying the value of the use of CAT’s in all majors.

2) Annonimity of student responses in the online classroom was mentioned as beneficial. How exactly is this to be achieved in the DQ Forum where student names appear next to their posts? Elaboration would help in this area. 

3) It would be interesting to learn why the small number of faculty included in the initial survey who did not use CAT’s chose not to employ this SoTL. Did they find a method they felt better achieved the academic goals of their classrooms, were they unfamiliar with the use of CAT’s, or was there another reason? Comparisons are helpful in academic studies and for faculty trainers as they design their workshops.

The preceding are offered as ideas to enhance your study results. I enjoyed reading the results of your study!

Blessings,

Ron Steadman