MyLab Economics educator study examines quiz and

exam scores in an online course at Normandale

Community College

School Name Timeframe

Normandale Community College, Spring 2017
Bloomington, MN
Submitted by
Course name Brooks Herrboldt, Instructor
Principles of Macroeconomics
Results reported by
Course format Candace Cooney, Pearson Customer
Online Outcomes Analytics Manager

Course materials
MyLab Economics with ​Macroeconomics
by Hubbard and O’Brien

Key Findings
● Data indicate a strong, positive correlation between MyLab quiz scores and
MyLab exam scores.

● Students with MyLab quiz scores above average earned MyLab exam scores eight
percentage points higher than students who scored below average.

● 97 percent of respondents on an end-of-semester survey agreed that their

understanding of the course material increased as a result of using MyLab.

Setting
● Locale: large, urban, public, two-year community college located south of Minneapolis
● Enrollment: more than 14,000 credit students
● Full-time students: 42 percent
● Full-time retention rate: 55 percent
● First-time, full-time students: 17 percent
● Three-year graduation rate: 16 percent
● Faculty-student ratio: 25:1
● Age: 26 percent of credit students are 25 or older
● Gender: 55 percent of credit students are female
● Diversity: 38 percent of credit students are students of color

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About the Course

Brooks Herrboldt has been teaching for approximately 14 years, spending the last 12 years at
Normandale, where he has been teaching Micro- and Macroeconomics. Principles of
Macroeconomics is a one-semester, three-credit course which enrolls about 1,100 students per year.
Online sections typically enroll 35 students while face to face sections seat approximately 45
students. The course is required of business and economics students, and is also a general
education requirement for students in political science, history, etc. Principles of Macroeconomics is
a companion course with Principles of Microeconomics, and together the courses introduce
students to the economic way of thinking. The course covers theories that explain the overall
performance of the economy, measurement of national income, unemployment, and inflation, and
the role of money and the banking system. Additional topics include policies that stabilize the
economy and promote economic growth, and international trade and finance within the framework
of the global economy.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

● Explain the implications of scarcity for society and decision-making;

● Apply the model of supply and demand to analyze market behavior;
● Interpret macroeconomic indicators;
● Analyze the causes and consequences of unemployment, inflation, and economic growth;
and
● Evaluate the effectiveness of using monetary and fiscal policy to achieve macroeconomic
goals.

Challenges and Goals

About ten years ago, Normandale began offering economics courses online. A challenge for offering
the course online was providing engaging, interactive tools that promote personal responsibility for
learning and motivate students to participate in the course. Additionally, creating an online course
from scratch can be time consuming and expensive, with a need for PowerPoints to explain
concepts, hands-on activities such as simulations and videos, graphics, critical thinking activities, and
assessments to certify learning gains. Knowing that publishers have filled this gap by using their vast
resources and textbook content, Herrboldt adopted MyLab™ Economics in 2007 for his sections.

Implementation
Learning Management System Integration
The Pearson Learning Management System (LMS) integration service gives students and instructors
easy access to MyLab from their existing school LMS. Herrboldt chose to integrate his MyLab course
with Desire2Learn (D2L) for the following reasons:

● Single sign-in process – students are ready to work in MyLab on the first day of class; and
● Content linking – ability to link to MyLab directly from D2L.

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Herrboldt’s students have just one access code and a single sign-on process instead of the need to
log in to D2L and additionally sign in to MyLab. This results in a simple way for students to start their
MyLab assignments, ensuring that they are ready to work from the first day of class. On a voluntary,
end-of-semester survey (69 percent response rate) in Spring 2017:

● 93 percent of students strongly agreed or agreed that they were able to access MyLab
through D2L and appreciated not having a separate, second log in and password for MyLab.

MyLab Economics is required; the program is used by students working at home for understanding
content, homework assignments, and assessments. As the course instructor, Herrboldt’s role is to
assign content and homework in MyLab and provide remote support to students using the program
at home. He anticipates that students will spend approximately 2–3 hours per week working in
MyLab, and students confirmed this on the end-of-semester survey—46 percent of students said
they spent 2–3 hours per week working in MyLab Economics, while an additional 34 percent of
students said they spent more than three hours working in the program.

MyLab Economics
Herrboldt encourages his students to utilize all the study tools in MyLab, even those not required. In
particular, he urges students to view two videos the first week of the semester that explain how to
get the most out of the eText and the learning aids in MyLab: the Enhanced eText Overview video
and the MyLab Learning Aids video. Students are encouraged to use the eText, as Herrboldt has
embedded self-created narrated and annotated PowerPoint slides and other video clips into the
eText where content appropriate. This allows for seamless reading and processing of all chapter
material.

In order to help his students understand economics, Herrboldt assigns problem sets in MyLab as
weekly homework for skills practice and applying the textbook material. There are no points
associated with these assignments, but students are required to complete the homework problems
with a minimum score of 70 percent before the MyLab quiz will open. Students have unlimited
attempts on homework problems, given that practice is the ultimate goal. On the end-of-semester
survey, 100 percent of students said they appreciated having unlimited attempts on MyLab
homework assignments to help prepare for the MyLab quizzes. One student summed up the
comments of many, noting, “A benefit of the MyLab was the multiple tries on homework, to make
sure I understood things correctly.”

Learning aids are turned on during these homework assignments to provide just-in-time support as
students practice newly acquired skills. On the end-of-semester survey, 51 percent of students said
they ‘usually’ or ‘always’ use the learning aids when unable to start or complete a homework
problem in MyLab, and an additional 40 percent indicate they ‘sometimes’ use the aids. In particular,
students on the survey commented on the ‘Help Me Solve This’ tool:

● “When not knowing an answer on homework or not knowing how to do a problem, the ‘Help Me
Solve This’ option really helped me understand it.”
● “I liked having the ‘Help Me Solve This’ option, I am a person who learns better when being shown
step-by-step.”

Students are also assigned a short video clip with questions in D2L; each question is worth five
points and the two lowest scores are dropped for final score calculation. Herrboldt also assigns a

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ten-point quiz weekly in MyLab, and students have three attempts at completion with no time limit.
The highest quiz score is recorded in the gradebook and the two lowest quiz scores are dropped for
final score calculation. MyLab assignments are due Sunday night at 11 p.m. and no late work is
accepted for any reason.

Four exams in MyLab comprise the additional summative course assessments. Each exam consists
of 33 questions and is worth 100 points Most questions are multiple-choice but the exam may also
include between three and eight MyLab questions. The exams cover all course content: assigned
reading, MyLab assignments, MyLab quizzes, PowerPoint presentations, MyLab problem sets, MyLab
video questions, and instructor-created videos. Students have 60 minutes for completion and just
one attempt per exam. No make-up exams are given, but students with a valid or prearranged exam
absence are required to take a comprehensive final exam covering parts 1–3 of the course, as well
as complete the fourth regularly scheduled exam.

Assessments

● 71% MyLab exams (4)

● 18% MyLab quizzes (13)
● 11% Video questions (13)

Results and Data

Figure 1 is a correlation graph; correlations do not imply causation but instead measure the strength
of a relationship between two variables, where ​r ​is the correlation coefficient. The closer the​ r​ value
is to 1.0, the stronger the correlation. The corresponding​ p​-value measures the statistical
significance/strength of this evidence (the correlation), where a​ p​-value <.05 shows the existence of a
positive correlation between these two variables.

● A strong positive correlation exists between average MyLab quiz scores and average MyLab
exam scores, where ​r​=.72 and​ p​<.05.

Additionally, the correlation of average video assignment scores to average MyLab quiz scores (not
depicted here graphically) is strong, where ​r​=.71 and ​p​<.05.

For students, the formative MyLab assignments are intended to help them identify where they are in
terms of successfully completing the summative quizzes and exams. Empirically, Herrboldt suggests
that the MyLab assets do have a positive impact on quiz and exam scores, noting that students who
spend time on homework assignments and use the Study Plan are generally successful.

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Correlation between MyLab quiz score and exam score

Figure 1. Correlation between Average MyLab Quiz Score and Average MyLab Exam Score, Spring 2017 (​n​=99)

Students were divided into two groups based on the average MyLab quiz score. Students who
earned quiz scores above average earned higher average exam scores (figure 2), and the difference
is statistically significant.

● Average MyLab quiz score: 77 percent

● Students who scored equal to or above the average MyLab quiz score earned average exam
scores 8 percentage points higher than students who earned a quiz score below the average.
● Results of a ​t​-Test show that students with a quiz score above average (average = 77 percent)
earned higher average exam scores than students with a quiz score below average, where
t​(183) = -3.29 and ​p​<.05, indicating that this difference is statistically significant.

Average MyLab quiz and exam scores

Figure 2. Average MyLab Quiz Score and Average MyLab Exam Score, Spring 2017 (​n​=99)

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Figure 3 shows that students who earned higher average MyLab quiz scores also earned higher
overall final course grades.

● Students exhibiting course success by earning an A, B, or C as their final course grade had
average MyLab quiz scores of 87 percent, which is 37 percentage points higher than
students who earned a D or F as the final course grade (50 percent average MyLab quiz
score).

Average MyLab quiz scores and final course grades

Figure 3. Average MyLab Quiz Scores and Final Course Grades, Spring 2017 (​n​=99)

The Student Experience

Responses from the Spring 2017 end-of-semester, voluntary survey of Herrboldt’s students indicate
that the majority of responding students recognize the value of MyLab Economics.

● 97 percent of students strongly agree or agree that their understanding of the course
material increased as a result of using MyLab.
● 96 percent of students strongly agree or agree that the use of MyLab positively impacted
their quiz and exam scores.
● 98 percent of students strongly agree or agree that they would recommend MyLab to
another student.

Student survey responses to the question, “What are the benefits of MyLab for you as a student”
include:
● “MyLab makes the work easier to understand by giving different approaches to the same problem,
allowing different learning styles to understand the same material.”
● “I liked how the MyLab homework explained how to do the questions step-by-step until you got the
question right.”

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 ● “I really enjoyed being able to work through as many or as few problems as needed based on my
previous knowledge of the material. It was also very helpful to be able to go over the homework as
many times as needed before taking quizzes and tests.”
● “Everything was there, no need to have a [print] textbook. I was able to study anytime and
anywhere as long as I had access to the internet.”
● “MyLab was an easy and fast way to do homework and quizzes. I learned a lot this semester
through MyLab!”

Conclusion
MyLab Economics enabled Herrboldt to offer his online students a complete course: reading,
practice, and assessment all in MyLab. Online students who lack face to face contact with their
instructor receive just-in-time support and many opportunities for practice and remediation. The
content is engaging and interactive, prepares students to be responsible for their own learning, and
motivates them to participate. A student on the end-of-semester survey sums up the MyLab
experience well: “With so many options, it was helpful to try different approaches to see which one
worked best for me at that specific time.” MyLab helps Herrboldt deliver the same quality course to
his online students as he does to his face-to-face students.