The WAC Clearinghouse
Research Methods



Research Methods

In the fall of 2000, there were forty-eight instructors from across the disciplines at Florida State using WebMC. These instructors' courses ranged from introductory surveys to graduate seminars. I emailed all forty-eight instructors and asked them to answer two series of questions:

  1. Has using using WebMC changed the way you teach or construct your courses? In what ways has your pedagogy changed (or stayed the same?)
  2. Do you use the class discussion board or class listserv component of WebMC? If you do, how do you use these components? Has using them changed your pedagogy? In what ways has it changed (or stayed the same)?
20 of the forty-eight instructors responded to my survey. Although I had access to the syllabi and assignments of these courses, which were posted to the WebMC pages, I did not have access to the course electronic discussion boards and listservs. I relied on my survey questions to investigate how instructors were using these communication features of WebMC. In the next section, I discuss the results of my survey.