Learning Gains of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning in an Online Course Setting

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that student-centred learning activities foster the evolution of higher-order skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving. Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) approach is one such student-centred instructional approach that is mainly focused on improving student's content mastery and learning skills such as information communication, critical thinking, problem-solving and metacognition. Currently, POGIL has been mostly implemented in traditional classroom settings, where all participants are physically present. However, advances in online learning technologies have increased the popularity of online courses. Our study aims to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of POGIL in improving the overall student performance in an online course setting. We also present a metaanalysis on POGIL implementation and its effectiveness in different course settings. We implemented a POGIL approach in two completely online courses from the Health Information Management (HIM) program, M200 (Database Design for HIM) and M220 (Health informatics for Decision Support). We integrated POGIL practices into the course redesign of these HIM courses considering the core philosophy of POGIL - students learn through the process of performing activities that aid in developing critical thinking skills - the teacher, in this method, does not instruct, but rather facilitates guided inquiry. The lecture slides and videos were updated with POGIL activities and updates to the educational content, by removing the introduction of new concepts, and replacing them by background information that was required to do the POGIL activities. The modified content was implemented in Summer and Fall semesters of 2018. To evaluate the effectiveness of the POGIL, we compared the student academic performance (grades in the course assessments) of HIM M-200 course before (all semesters of 2017 and spring of 2018) and after POGIL implementation (Summer and Fall semesters of 2018). We used the Wilcoxon rank sum test to compare the performance of the student's pre and post-implementation. The results of the analysis showed that there is a statistically significant difference (p-value = 0.03) in the academic performance of the students before and after implementation. These different implementation under two contexts have been discussed and evaluated under the results.