To the Graduate School:

The members of the committee approve the thesis o f Kun Shao presented on
April 23, 2001.

Rex E. Gantenbein, Chairman

C o rd b }
7ohn R. Cowles

Joseph Stepans

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APPROVED:

aalen, Head, Department o f Computer Science

Stephen E. Williams, Dean, The Graduate School

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 Shao, Kun, A System for Analyzing Student Performance in Web-Based Distance
Education, M.S., Department o f Computer Science, May, 2001.

The Web-based classroom can provide an effective and cost-saving alternative to

traditional face-to-face instruction, allowing educators to reach more students in more

locations. However, the lack o f integrated tools for all aspects o f education has been a

barrier to the implementation o f such technology. The integration o f database and Web

technologies in distance education offers many advantages, such as dynamic provision o f

course material, keyword search capability, long-term data storage, and repeated use o f

course materials. In addition, the storage o f data in databases offers an opportunity for

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using data mining and other research tools.
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This paper describes the design and implementation o f databases for student education

integrated with collaborative Web technologies. Examples o f such technologies include

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URL instructions, e-mail, video, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and other Web-based tools

for offering classes to geographically-dispersed participants. The unique feature o f this

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project is the incorporation o f statistical analysis tools into the Web site to help the

instructor evaluate course progress and student performance. The analysis o f a student’s

performance by statistical methods offers a scientific and reliable evaluation method that

opens a door for a number o f new approaches to Web-based education.

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 A SYSTEM FOR ANALYZING STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN WEB-BASED
DISTANCE EDUCATION

by
Kun Shao

A thesis submitted to the Department o f Computer Science

and The Graduate School o f the University o f Wyoming

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in partial fulfillment o f the requirements
for the degree o f
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MASTER OF SCIENCE
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in
COMPUTER SCIENCE
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Laramie, Wyoming
May, 2001

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 UMI Number: EP19460

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my great gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Rex E. Gantenbein, for

letting me choose this project, for his continuous guidance and support. His

supervision and advice is invaluable to this project. I would also like to thank

Dr. John R. Cowles and Dr. Joseph Stepans for serving on my committee and for their

valuable suggestions on this paper.

Many thanks to my husband and my family for their love, encouragement, and

support.

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This paper is dedicated to my darling daughter Vickie. She makes my life worth

living and everything I do worth doing.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Chapter 2 Literature Review and Background Information 5

Chapter 3 System Overview and Design 14

Chapter 4 Web Subsystem Design and Implementation 22

Chapter 5 Database Subsystem Design and Implementation 28

Chapter 6 Statistical Subsystem Design and Implementation 33

Chapter 7 System Implementation and Evaluation 37

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Chapter 8 Conclusions and future developments IE 44

References 46

Appendix 49
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 Chapter 1 Introduction

As the world continues its course o f rapid change, business, industry, and government

alike will find it increasingly more difficult to keep their productive workforces

competitive and current (Gore, 2000). These rapidly expanding educational needs are

best met through Web-based distance education. Advances in computer and Web

technology however, have created an unprecedented opportunity for satisfying many

educational needs and bringing a wide variety o f educational applications closer to a

broad base o f potential users. It is not surprising that many people have started to realize

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the advantages o f these technologies to satisfy distance education needs. Distance

education is a special form o f education that does not require traditional classroom
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settings. The most significant promise o f distance education may be its ability to reach

non-traditional learners, such as continuing education students, workforce-training

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students, some o f the handicapped students, and part-time students. These are people who

can clearly benefit from the advances in distance education helped by Web-based
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technologies because o f the time and location flexibility it offers to them.

With the rapid development o f Web-technologies, we have a wide range o f technologies

available for distance education (Whetzel, 1996). The use o f multiple Web-based

technologies provides richer communication than any one technology alone, because

each technology promotes different type o f interaction and is used in different senses.

Students may vary in their preferences for and comfort levels with the different

communication mechanisms. There may be also indications that different technologies

prove effective for different learning styles. The use o f the technology could, in itself, be

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 a valuable pedagogical experience. To some degree, the success o f Web-based instruction

should be judged by how well it meets the challenge to better satisfy the needs o f non-

traditional education forms, especially distance education.

One o f the significant advantages the Web-based education platform has over traditional

education media is the storage o f course-related data in digital form. These data include

instructional materials, student discussions, as well as student performance data. The key

for future development o f Web-based distance education will be to advance information

technology that transforms data into information that is useful for course evaluation and

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can be used to improve course instruction.
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One o f the great promises offered by Web-based distance education is the integration o f

database functionalities into Web technologies to enhance distance education. However,

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the transformation o f course related data into useful information requires improvement in

data integration technologies. This paper presents the design and implementation o f a
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database-integrated distance course with an emphasis on statistical analysis tools for

student performance evaluation. The design o f this distance education information system

is unique in that it allows an instructor to evaluate student performance statistically by

clicking a button. Since statistical analysis is a scientific way o f comparing two groups o f

data to see if the difference is significant, this system could be a valuable tool for the

instructors. By using statistical methods to analyze student performance in a scientific

way, an instructor can gather valuable insight to facilitate the improvement o f course

instruction, to give special attention to lagging students, to analyze course progress, and

to carry out other statistical analyses which could normally be overlooked. All the

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 information gathered through this analysis will help the instructor conduct an unbiased

and fact-based evaluation. If special attention is required for a particular student, direct

actions could be taken accordingly.

The design and implementation of Distance Education Management System (DEMS) in

this project follows established software engineering principles (Pressman, 1997). These

principles are used in this project to guide the analysis, design, construction, verification

and management o f software projects. Based on these principles, this project will address

the following questions and provide responses to these questions.

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• What is the problem DEMS intend to solve?

• What are the characteristics o f DEMS?

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• How will DEMS be constructed and implemented?

• What approaches will be used to uncover errors that were made in the design and
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construction o f DEMS?

• How will DEMS be supported over the long term, when corrections, adaptations,
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and enhancements are requested by users o f DEMS?

Chapter 2 will provide the background information on computer technologies used in

DEMS and review the literature for current status o f Web-based distance education.

Chapter 2 will also identify the problems to be solved. Chapter 3 provides the overall

design o f DEMS and, thereby, describes the characteristics o f DEMS. Chapter 4

discusses the Web interface design and implementation that provides Internet access for

instructors and students. Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 contain detailed design and

implementation for the database and statistical subsystems. The statistical subsystem

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 specified in Chapter 6 provides scientific methods to analyze students’ performance

based on t-test. Chapter 7 discusses system testing and integration strategies to uncover

the errors that could have been made in the process o f designing and constructing DEMS.

The last chapter provides the conclusions and discusses the future developments on

DEMS.

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 Chapter 2 Literature Review and Background Information

This chapter reviews the current status o f the increasing needs for distance education,

Web-technologies applicable to distance education, and the literature review on current

development in this field.

A. The need for Web-based distance education

Distance education is a special form o f education delivery to address those educational

requirements not easily met by the traditional classroom settings, such as continuing

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education, workforce education, education for severely handicapped students, and

education for part-time students. To stem the anticipated shortages in skills and qualified
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personnel, traditional approaches to training and education will have to be re-engineered

(Fisher, 1996).
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Web-based distance education could be especially attractive to non-traditional students.

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These "non-traditional students" are generally older and already dedicated to family and

career. Therefore, they are most in need o f educational opportunities that are highly

flexible in terms o f time and place o f instruction. Ideally, they most likely would prefer to

participate in courses and other educational opportunities from their homes, businesses,

or nearby sites in their local communities. They would definitely prefer to pursue their

coursework on their own schedules, as opposed to having to try and fit their lives around

an institution's schedule. However, such students also share some common needs with

traditional on-campus students. They require similar academic support services, such as

access to the learning resources and research support generally provided by campus
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