April 2012 Volume 15 Number 2 - Educational Technology & Society

If compared by programs, WP students who were older and had greater working experience had higher means for all
the questions in the satisfaction questionnaire than NP and DP students by 0.22- 0.65. Some studies found (Hsia,
2004; Wang, 2003; Yu, 1998) that learners taking in-service programs at the age of 30 - 40 generally had higher
instrumental motivation, which is taken as a desire to use the target languages to attain practical goals, such as
getting a job or reading technical materials (Hudson, 2000), so that they showed a better learning satisfaction.
A further analysis through one-way ANOVA among the programs indicated that there was no significant difference
between NP and DP, probably due to their similar background. However, a significant difference existed among WP,
NP and DP in several questions related such as QF1 (teaching with the courseware), QF3.1 (overall English skills),
QF3.2 (listening), QF3.3 (speaking), QF3.4 (reading), QF4 (professional content), QF5 (English content), QF6
(multimedia-assisted learning) and QF7 (on-line evaluation), shown in Table 3. Since WP had a higher posttest score
than the other two, the result indicated that WP students with higher achievement were more satisfied with the
instruction, and professional and English content provided by the courseware, and made more use of learning
activities such as practices of English skills, multimedia and on-line evaluation. Related findings had also been
observed in the earlier study: the students with high scores had a better participation, understanding and satisfaction
while studying with courseware integration so that they were more competent to learn in such a professional and
learner-centered ESP course with the courseware (Tsai, 2009).
Results of the external on-line questionnaire
An external on-line questionnaire with 11 items was administered, including three parts: students’ self-discipline and
motivation (items 1 and 2), participation and instruction (items 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11) and students’ self-evaluation
of learning effectiveness (items 8 and 9). A 5-point Likert scale was used and the Cronbach alpha reliability for the
questionnaires was 0.951. There were respectively 78 and 271 students for the instructions with/without courseware
integration who validly completed the questionnaire. The result is listed in Table 4.
Table 4. Results of the external on-line questionnaire for both instructions with/without courseware integration
(WCI: instruction with courseware integration, N=78; F2F: instruction without courseware, N=271)
Questions Instruction Mean STD
E1. I pay attention in class.
WCI
F2F
4.46
4.59
.502
.522
E2. I always attend the class.
WCI
F2F
4.31
4.41
.492
.659
E3. What is taught corresponds to the teaching goal.
WCI
F2F
4.37
4.41
.647
.729
E4. The teaching materials and handouts are rich.
WCI
F2F
4.36
4.38
.664
.755
E5. The teaching content is relevance.
WCI
F2F
4.32
4.37
.747
.733
E6. The teacher makes use of the material and gives a systematical WCI 4.38 .649
explanation.
F2F 4.42 .715
E7. The teacher gives examples or uses auxiliary tools to facilitate WCI 4.40 .690
learning.
F2F 4.41 .704
E8. I get some professional knowledge and skills.
WCI
F2F
4.26
4.38
.763
.755
E9. The abilities of thinking, analysis and problem-solving are WCI 4.35 .735
improved.
F2F 4.41 .693
E10. The preparation and attitude of the teacher is serious and WCI 4.42 .614
careful.
F2F 4.53 .643
E11. I recommend others to take this course.
WCI
F2F
4.37
4.49
.705
.688
56