Introducing Multimedia Presentations and a Course Website to an Introductory Sociology Course: How Technology Affects Student Perceptions of Teaching Effectiveness

Abstract

I use a quasi-experiment and follow-up questionnaire to ascertain the effects of PowerPoint multimedia presentations and a Blackboard course website on the course grades and perceptions of teaching effectiveness of introductory sociology students. Results of t-tests showed no statistically significant difference in course grades between experimental and control groups. However, students' responses to standardized teaching evaluations were considerably more favorable in the experimental group; all measured dimensions of perceived teaching effectiveness yielded statistically significant increases, with substantial increases in perceptions of instructor rapport and grading. I use the ideas of George Herbert Mead to interpret the results and increase sociological understanding of the relationship between the introduction of instructional technology and student perceptions of teaching effectiveness. In Mead's terms, the introduction of technology is not merely a self-involved act performed by the instructor that changes the modality of course presentation but a social process involving both instructor and students. Within this process the introduction of technology is both a nonsignificant gesture, which elicits from students an unconscious or “instinctively” favorable impression of the course, and a significant symbol, which calls forth behavioral responses from students, conscious actions that substantially alter their perceptions of the course. Students not only reacted positively to the instructor's use of technology but through their own use of the technology increased their involvement in the course and came to perceive its teaching more favorably.