Evaluation of Student Facing Web-Based Services: WickED (Nielsen/NetRatings)

Learning for Teachers And Other Adults

This section of the report focuses on results captured from the adult component of the WickED research. In a similar fashion to the main student sample, the adults were captured for inclusion within the research using a site intercept methodology, launched from the WickED site from May through August 2006. Of the total sample, less than one third are adults (28%) and among adult users, 71% are teachers, 17% are parents/guardians and 12% librarians or other learning facility staff. Caution should be exercised when interpreting the results of this section due to the low base sizes of adults captured for inclusion within the survey - in total 58 adults participated.

Of those teachers visiting the site, the majority are teaching students in year six or under (78%), which is consistent with the target ages of the WickED user audience. While most are teaching primary school levels, 27% teach lower years of secondary school which corresponds to the earlier finding that just under half of student users are aged over 12 years. The levels taught by teachers visiting the WickED site is highlighted in the graph below (note: multiple responses were allowed for those teachers who are charged with the responsibility of more than one level of student):

Levels Taught

Awareness And Patterns Of Usage Of WickED Site

Consistent with the patterns of awareness observed amongst students, the largest proportion of adult users first discovered WickED via an Internet search (e.g. Google). Just under half of adults found WickED through a search engine, with similar levels observed between teachers and parents (teachers 49% and parents 50%).

Just over one quarter of adults first found out about the service through a teacher (26%) with teachers indicatively more likely to hear about WickED from a fellow teacher than other adults (29% of teachers first found WickED from a fellow teacher).

‘Internet searches’ and ‘teachers’ are the two main methods through which adults are finding out about the service and the next most popular method, ‘advertising and marketing activities’, is 21 percentage points behind ‘teachers’ as a method of finding the site. The full list of methods of first discovering WickED are highlighted in the graph below:

Method of first finding out about WickED

While, amongst adult users of the service, Internet searches and teachers appear to be strong sources of generating awareness, those using the services are dedicating relatively small amounts of time with students for online educational activities. Teachers are only spending an average of three hours per week (3 hours 14 minutes) using the Internet for school related activities with students. This indicates that even if greater levels of awareness were generated amongst adults, and teachers in particular, the amount of dedicated school time to using this service amongst the range of all online educational services is likely to be limited if the trends continue. The chart below shows the number of hours each week teachers are spending using the Internet with their students. The average amount of time spent online with students is comparable to teachers using Studyit with their students (less than 4 hours each week); however, while only 7% of teachers who make use of WickED do not spend any time online with their students, this response was found among 17% of teachers using Studyit. It indicates that teachers of younger students are more pro active in encouraging the use of online resources among their students.

Hours spent per week on the Internet with students

The lack of time dedicated by teachers to using WickED may be influenced by a lack of confidence in using the service and potentially teachers may feel they are unable to instruct students on how to effectively use the WickED service. Over half of all adults using the WickED website have been doing so for less than one month, with less than one third having used the site for longer than one year (31%). Teachers show only marginally longer tenures, compared to all adults, at 34% (used for one year or longer). With more than half of all adult users having interacted with the service for less than one month, these new users’ confidence with the service is likely to increase over time and these adults may start actively engaging in educational activities on WickED with their students/children.

As found for student users, there is also an opportunity to stimulate greater repeat visitation and loyalty to the WickED site among adult users.

Length of time using WickED

 

Recommendation Of Resources To Students

In terms of the collection of resources available to students for educational and study purposes, both online and offline, adults are most likely to recommend offline resources with ‘school libraries’ and ‘books’ the two most recommended resources (83% of adults recommend the school library and 81% of adults recommend books). Other popular offline resources include teachers (78%), people from the community (72%) and public libraries (69%). While offline resources are clearly favoured as a learning resource for students, search engines (e.g. Google) are the third most popular resource for recommendation overall, with 78% of adults recommending students use them for help with school work and study.

While just over three quarters of adults are recommending a search engine to students, other online resources are less recommended with subject specific websites (e.g. Mathematics websites) recommended by less than two thirds (64%), and library sites (57%), school sites (53%) and general study sites recommended by less than half (45%). The educational resources recommended by adults to students are highlighted in the chart below:

Resources Recommended to Students

In addition to citing the extent to which they recommend various resources, adults were also asked to rate the importance of each resource on a scale from one to five, where a score of one indicated the resource was not important at all and a score of five was very important in helping young students learn. Traditional resources achieved the three highest scores overall, with teachers achieving the highest importance mean score of 4.24, followed by books with a score of 4.22 and the school library at 4.09. Internet search engines and specialist websites were rated equally important with a score of 4.07. The mean importance scores (maximum score 5) are highlighted in the chart overleaf:

Resource importance for helping young students learn 

The importance of the various resources follows a similar trend to those resources actually recommended by adults, with offline resources accounting for the top 3 most important resources, as perceived by adults. Teachers, books and the school library are believed by adults to be the most important resources and search engines are seen to be the fourth most important resource overall and the most important online resource for students. It is interesting to note that adults perceive Chatrooms and forums to be the least important of all resources listed with student chatrooms scoring 2.5 and general chatrooms 2.1 out of five. This highlights the importance of clearly educating adults as to the difference between a forum and a chatroom and emphasizing the safety of WickED’s moderated forums to overcome any misconceptions about the service.

The net importance score (excluding “N/A” and “No Opinion”) can be seen in the chart below.

Resource Importance

Perception Of Quality Of Service Of Wicked

In terms of adults’ perception of WickED, overall most are happy with the service. Over three quarters (78%) of all adults are either “happy” or “very happy” with the service WickED provides to students, and almost nine out of ten teachers (88%) rate the service at the same level. Adult satisfaction levels are demonstrated in the chart below: 

Overall satisfaction with the service provided to students

While base sizes are low, adults satisfied with the service were asked to identify specific areas of the WickED site they feel are performing well. The results indicate that most adults and teachers are unsure as they are new to the service, however 10% of adults spontaneously mentioned that they are particularly satisfied with the range of activities available and 7% with the Maori resources available. The table below reveals the spontaneous responses relating to those areas in which adult users feel WickED is performing particularly well:

Adults	%	n=
DK new to the site	13.8%	8
Range of activities	10.3%	6
Maori resources	6.9%	4
All areas	5.2%	3
Colourful/interesting graphics	5.2%	3
Good service	3.4%	2
Interactive site	3.4%	2
Activities for all ages	3.4%	2
Quizzes	3.4%	2

In addition to citing specific areas of satisfaction with the site, adults were also asked for suggested improvements to the service. Again, base sizes are low, however verbatim comments are outlined below:

• “Enable teachers to request themes”.
• “Enable children… from different schools to talk to each other”.
• “Have more topics and assessments”.
• “Clearer menu for navigation”.
• “Language eg. Verbs/adverbs/adjectives etc”
• “Providing a more varied programme more consistently”
• “Quizzes need to be updated, update resources”
• “At the start of Maori interactives there should be an indication of whether the interactive is in both Maori and English – this would be helpful for mainstream classroom teachers”.
• “Add some maths games for Year 1-3 students”

Recommendation Of WickED And Situations Of Usage

The clear majority of adults claim to actively recommend WickED to children in their care. Overall, 91% of adults report to have recommended the WickED website to the children in their care, and all teachers participating in the survey recommend the service to their students. This is far higher than the 56% of student users who found out about WickED from a teacher and reveals that while may teachers are proactive in their use and recommendation of the site (and willing to give some time to complete the survey), there are also a number of teachers who are either unaware of WickED or do not promote the site to students either because they are dissatisfied with the value it has to offer or due to indolence.

Do you recommend WickED to children in your care?

Just over four fifths of teachers recommend WickED to all types of students (81%), with only 12% specifically targeting low achieving students and 10% targeting high achieving students. This reinforces the notion that WickED is perceived to be a service for all students and not for specific types of students such as those that are academically gifted or challenged, however, as seen in the student profiles – the site is predominantly being used by academically confident students (refer Service Reach). It remains a challenge to ensure that teacher of less confident and competent students are also aware of, promoting and encouraging use of WickED to broaden the reach of the service.

Consistent with the high level of recommendation cited by teachers and with students’ cited situations of usage, over two thirds of teacher visitors to the site report using WickED as a part of their study plan (despite the low levels of reported time dedicated to online activities in school illustrated earlier in this section). Of the 32% of teachers that have not used WickED as a part of their teaching plan, most claim that to their knowledge their students have not used the site (62%), just under one third direct students to use it in their own time (31%) and 8% believe that students use the site by choice. The use of WickED as a part of the teaching plan is shown in the chart below:

WickED used as part of teaching plan

Perceived Barriers To Use

The main barriers to students using the WickED website, as perceived by adults, are students’ lack of access to a computer and the Internet at school (66%), their lack of access at home (43%) and a lack of available time to dedicate to using WickED during school hours (41%).

It is also interesting to note that just over one quarter of the adult’s surveyed have concerns regarding the schools’ Internet connection speed and one fifth have concerns over home Internet connection speeds (for those students with connections at home). This clearly indicates that while other challenges need to be overcome to provide access and time for use of WickED in school, increasing the speed of access available at schools may have significant impact on uptake of the service during school hours. The full list of barriers can be seen in the below chart:

Barriers to student use of WickED

Overall, those adults who chose to participate in the survey are positive toward WickED and the value it offers students. In addition to the constructive suggestions offered, complimentary closing comments included:

• “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
• “We have enjoyed what we have seen and done on the wicked site.  Keep the topics and activities coming!”
• “Fantastic site…Pai rawe atu.”