ABSTRACT

The objective of the present study was to create and evaluate an on-line learning objective answer database.  The goal of the answer database was to make information about, and/or answers to, learning objectives that students were provided with in their lecture notes available to them anytime.  Our hypothesis was threefold:  i) that student satisfaction with the availability and access to the learning objective answers would be high,  ii) that having the answers made available to them would not affect student performance in the course, raising or lowering, the class average artificially, and  iii) that less instructor time would be spent discussing routine issues/questions, freeing up office hours to deal with students with more serious problems with the course content.  The answer database was created using Filemaker Pro 4.1 ® and housed on Macintosh computers in faculty members’ offices.  The effectiveness of the database was evaluated over a 3-year period and compared with the previous 3-year period in which the database was not used.  Evaluation methods included student and faculty surveys and numerical assessments of overall course and database rating and average course grades.  Results indicate that there is no significant difference in student satisfaction and grades with or without the database, while faculty time spent in office hours and answering routine questions is decreased.