Exploring the effects of online team-based learning and co-regulated learning on students' development of computing skills

As more and more educational institutions are providing online courses, it is necessary to design effective teaching methods integrated with technologies to benefit both teachers and students. The researcher in this study designed innovative online teaching methods of team-based learning (TBL) and co-regulated learning (CRL) to improve students' computing skills. The participants in this study were 124 undergraduates from three classes taking a compulsory course titled “Applied Information Technology: Data Processing.” There were three blended classes involved in this empirical study. The first group (EG1), which received the treatment of online TBL and CRL, and the second group (EG2), which received the treatment of online TBL only, were the experimental groups. The last group, which received the traditional teaching method, served as the control group. Before the experiment started, the author conducted a pretest to confirm that the differences of students' computing skills among the three groups were not significant at the beginning of the course. Based on the analysis of the post-test, the results indicate that students who received the intervention of online CRL had significantly better computing skills for using Excel by semester-end than those without. However, the intervention of online TBL did not contribute to better learning effects in this study. Based on the findings in this study, the author points out implications for teachers, schools, and educators, particularly for those responsible for courses focusing on solving ill-structured problems and those students who have typically received traditional didactic pedagogy for many years.