Insights at the Nexus of Accessibility, Instructional Design, and Student Success
To what extent does the design of LMS course sites correlate with failure and withdrawal (DFW) rates in undergraduate courses at a residential public university? Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) sought to answer that question by analyzing data from more than 900 undergraduate course sections in one semester, including enrollment, DFW rates, and data from Anthology Ally, an LMS accessibility plug-in. Ally scans and reports reliable counts of instructor-embedded course content (e.g., files, announcements, and pages). A preliminary analysis found that “suboptimal” numbers of pages in Canvas course sites correlated significantly with higher DFW rates. These results could occur for several reasons, but only instructors or their proxies can create pages in Canvas course sites. Thus, this research reveals fresh insight into possible instructional design effects on course-level student success. In this session, the researchers will discuss this novel use of accessibility data, their evolving methodology, additional findings, study limitations, and implications for practice.
Presenters
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Jeff Freels
Director of Academic Policy & Research,
University of Texas at Austin
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Raj Sankaranarayanan
Postdoctoral Fellow,
University of Texas at Austin