A Case of an Asynchronous E-learning Course in Undergraduate
Career Education toward Enhancement of Self-efficacy
Chiyuki Kuwahara
Kyoto Bunkyo Junior College, Japan/ Kumamoto University, Japan
ckuwahara@po.kbu.ac.jp

Toshihiro Kita
Graduate School of Instructional Systems
Kumamoto University, Japankita@ield.kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Yoshiko Goda
Graduate School of Instructional Systems
Kumamoto University, Japanygoda@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Katsuaki Suzuki
Graduate School of Instructional Systems
Kumamoto University, Japanksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Abstract: This paper reports the practice of asynchronous e-learning course for undergraduate career
education based on questionnaire survey of career decision making self-efficacy. Career development tasks
for undergraduate students include self-understanding, school-to-Work transition, and independent career
design. These problems are closely related to “Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy: CDMSE” (Taylor &Betz 1983).The authors set up asynchronous e-learning course using Moodle. It’s on credits transfer systemand 36 students from 6 universities and 16 faculties took it. Each lesson consists of VOD, resources, andForum module. Students must post a message and reply to other messages on forum each time, and peer
review for career planning assignment is used at the 14th lesson. From the survey with CDMSE scale, theaverage of course students is higher than that of other nationwide survey. Although no remarkable change
was recognized after the practice, students show favorable feedback on interaction with other students.
Because of peer review using a real name, a tendency to praise or admire was seen in review messages. Thus
almost all respondents said that they could find their good points through the practice. To enhanceself-efficacy, further improvements are needed in specific learning design and peer review system forasynchronous e-learning.
Keywords: asynchronous e-learning, Moodle, career education, peer review, Career decision making self-efficacy

INTRODUCTION
The Background of the Study
Recently in Japan, because of the severe employment situation, there’re many university graduates who
leave a job after a short period of employment and the number of young non-regular employees is increasing. With
these problems as a backdrop, it has been made mandatory for higher educational institutions to conduct career
education program both in the regular curriculum and the extracurricular activities. But there is a wide variety ofgoals and contents in undergraduate career education depending on educational research aim of an organization, a typeof faculty or department, or a scale of the university, so it is difficult to explain the career education in a word.
Furthermore, unlike Vocational and Technical Education for the purpose of acquisition of skills specifically, it is asignificant issue how to measure the educational effects in a practice of career education toward career development.
Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy
The Japanese Society for the Study of Career Education presents career development tasks forundergraduate students by each grade level (The Japanese Society for the Study of Career Education 2008). It
includes self-understanding, school-to-Work transition, and independent career design. These tasks are closely
related to “Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy” (Taylor & Betz 1983).
Taylor & Betz introduced Bandura(1977)’s self-efficacy theory to career decision making domain andpropose the concept of Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy(in this paper, we term Career Decision-Making
Self-Efficacy “CDMSE”), which means the self-efficacy for behaviors required in career decision making. CDMSE
is closely related to actual career decision making behaviors and indecision of career course, and it is possible tomodify with intervention. Taylor & Betz developed a measure of self-efficacy expectations with regard to 50
behaviors required in career decision making and Urakami(1995) developed a measure of self-efficacy expectations
with regard to 30 behaviors required in career decision making for Japanese culture and society.
There are a lot of empirical studies on career decision-making self-efficacy in America from 1980s. Also
in Japan, many studies about how to enhance CDMSE have been seen, but it has not been fully understood how tointervene adequately (Tominaga 2008). The problem about enhancement of CDMSE leaves room for further inquiry.
Peer Review to Enhance Self-efficacy
For the deepening of self-understanding and the development of self-efficacy, which is required in career
education, a process to reflect on one’s learning is important as well as active learning to make students to participate
in a class. Peer evaluation is one way of students participation learning style. A peer evaluation format not only
encourage students’ involvement(Weaver & Cotrell 1986) and self-reflection(Ueno et al. 2008), but also enables
students to learn from other students’ works, to see others point of view, and to achieve the improvement ofevaluation ability and improvement of one’s own work(Fujihara et al. 2008). Because it is important in career
education to get objective viewpoint in interaction with others, to deepen their self-understanding, and to lead toactual actions, it is suggested that a peer review form is an effective learning method for career education. In addition,
Bandura (1977) cites four sources of efficacy expectations as an element that foster self-efficacy: achievement of
performance behavior, agency experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal. The authors make a hypothesisthat associates these four sources of efficacy expectations with the elements of Peer Review learning in career
education, as shown in Table1.
Table 1: Four Sources of Efficacy Expectations andFour Sources of Efficacy Expectations
Elements of Peer Review in Career Education
PERFORMANCE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
To draw up one’s career planTo make a presentation of career planTo enhance evaluation capability
VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE
To see and evaluate other students’ career
plan
VERBAL PERSUATIONTo receive other students’ evaluation to one’s
career plan
EMOTIONAL AROUSAL
To enjoy peer review

Therefore, we have practiced peer review learning of toward enhancement of self-efficacy inundergraduate career education courses, using the Moodle Workshop module in face-to-face class. As a result, it has
been shown that students deepen awareness of career and CDMSE was significantly improved after the peer
evaluation learning (Kuwahara et al. 2012). In this paper, we report the practice of asynchronous e-learning course ofundergraduate career education based on the practice of face-to-face teaching, with aim to discuss whether it ispossible to enhance CDMSE by peer review learning in an asynchronous e-learning course as well.

ONLINE CAREER EDUCATION COURSE
E-Koto Learning Systems Kyoto
Many universities are concentrated in Kyoto. Historically, Kyoto has developed as a city of universities.
“The Consortium of Universities in Kyoto” is an organization with the aim of improving the levels of education andacademic research conducted at member universities and junior colleges, developing one of the largest scalebusinesses in Japan. The Credit Exchange System is one of the core businesses of the consortium. It enables students
to take courses that are offered at other universities. To make students inquisitive and more aware of a wide range ofknowledge, a variety of subjects are provided so that students can take courses according to their interest. Since 2008
E-Learning Program awarded 3 year grant by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, so the consortium developed e-learning credit exchange system which is called “e-koto learning”. Open
source Moodle was adopted as the learning management system to provide e-learning contents, and other functions
such as syllabus, curriculum management, or course enrollment system have been developed as its own web
application. In 2012, 13 asynchronous e-learning courses and 2 blended e-learning courses were provided.
Asynchronous E-learning Course
The authors set up career education course on E-Koto Learning Systems Kyoto in 2012. 36 students from
6 universities and 16 faculties took the course(15 second year students, 7 third year students, 14 more than fourthyear students). Each lesson consists of video on demand contents (VOD) in SCORM format, resources, and Forum
module (Figure1). Students have to post a message and reply to other students’ messages on forum each time. In
addition, peer review for career planning assignment on Forum module at the 14th lesson. An outline of the course isshown in Table2.

Figure 1: the Image of Asynchronous E-learning Course on Moodle

Lesson
No.
1

2

3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Table 2: An Outline of the Asynchronous E-learning Course
Scaffolding for
Lesson Title
Students’ Task
Community Building
Orientation:
Forum: Post a message of
Self-introduction Video ofContemporary Society
self-introduction( upload a photo Teacher
and Career Development
image if possible)
Teacher’s Comment to allmessages
A Concept of Career and Life Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message
Span Development
Think about Myself(1):Self-Understanding with
Personal History
The Diversificationof Employment
Life Course and Career(1)one other message

Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Life Course and Career(2)Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Problems about Young People
CareerVocation: Business Industory
and Job Description
Think about Myself(2):Values and Vocational Attitude
Basic Ability to Work in
Society
Case
Study
on
CareerTransition
Think about Myself(3):Career Anchor
Think about Myself(4):Dream, Goal, and Ten Years
After
Peer Review of Career Plans

14
15

Forum: Upload personal history
worksheet & reply to more thanReflection of Peer Review

Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Promote the exchange ofstudents by requiring students
to post a message and reply
to other students’ message

Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Forum: Post a message only
Forum: Post a message & reply tomore than one other message

Forum: Post a message only
Create Career Plan Worksheet

Upload Career Plan Work (firstedition) & Comment to Other
Students’ Work
Submit Career Plan Work(final
edition)

METHODSClassroom PracticeIn asynchronous e-learning course for career education targeting 36 students, we conducted a peer review
learning for career planning assignment. For assignment to be evaluated, it is required to evaluate three per person
evaluators. As a peer evaluation learning system, we used Forum module (message board) of Moodle 2.0x. In orderto clarify the evaluation criteria, the rubric of six evaluation aspects with 5 levels were presented to the students. The
evaluation was carried out in the real name.

Problems of Peer Review in an Asynchronous E-learning Course
With Moodle Workshop module that has been used in the peer review in the practice of
face-to-face classes, it is necessary for a teacher to switch phases of submission and evaluation at certain timing. In
asynchronous e-learning courses, a progress of study is different depending on each learner, so we used Forum
module instead of Workshop module of Moodle. Students uploaded one’s career plan work to forum, viewed files
mutually, and posted a comment with evaluation in a reply message.
Questionnaire Survey
To measure Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy, we have carried out the investigation at 1st lesson and15th lesson with Google form, using the career decision-making self-efficacy scale for college students (30 items,
four- point scale) developed by Urakami (1995). For each item of the scale, giving one point to an answer of “noconfidence at all”, then four points to “very confident”, and we use the total score of 30 items as CDMSE scale score.
The number of valid responses was 21 at the 1st lesson (pre-survey), and 9 at the 15th lesson (post-survey). Further,in order to study the cognition for learning task was carried out after learning a questionnaire about motivation formutual evaluation and creation of the career plans (five-point scale)., We have created the questions related tomotivation with reference to the ARCS model, which is a problem solving approach to designing the motivational
aspects of learning environments (Keller 2010; Suzuki, 1995).

RESULTS
Characteristics of the Students
The table 3 shows the overall average of CDMSE scale score of the survey at the first lesson.
In the "Career Attitude Survey of College Students 2007" conducted by Center for The Promotion of
Excellence in Higher Education (Kyoto University) and Dentsu Scholarship Foundation, extensive nationwide
research using the same scale as this paper has been used. The survey targeted 2013 undergraduate students(first-year and third-year student) in Japan (Urakami 2007). When compared to the average of the survey was 78.78
points (N=2013, Standard Deviation 14.95 points), it can be said that students with relatively high CDMSE havetaken the career education courses of e-learning. The result supports previous study that students with higher
CDMSE are more active on career-decision making behaviors.
Table 3: The Average of CDMSE of students (N=21)

Average
(SD)

CDMSE
90.29
(10.77)

Changes in Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy
23 students out of 36 students finished thecourse and get a credit, but only six students had
answered both of pre- and post-test. Figure 2 shows
the changes in the pre- and post-CDMSE scale score.
Though the post-CDMSE shows a little increase, it
was not significant at the 5% level from the result of
paired t-test.

Figure 2: the Change of CDMSE score

The Questionnaire Survey with ARCS Motivation Model
Table 4 shows the results of the questionnaire about the motivation for the creation of career plans and thepeer review learning. As for peer review leaning, the averages of answers for questions about evaluating otherstudents were generally higher than that about getting evaluation from other students. It is suggested that elements ofconfidence among the four factors of ARCS is especially related to CDMSE, but the answer to the “I gained
confidence to continue it” was lower compared with other questions.

Table 4: The Answers for the Questions about Motivation for Tasks (N=13)

The Questionnaires for the Peer Review
Reaction of students was generally good about the exchange of ideas with students from other universities
in peer review. In addition, when asked whether peer review helped to find of good points of one’s own plan or
improve the plan, many students answered that receiving an evaluation comment from others helped them to findgood points in their own career plan (Table 5). From this result, it is suggested that there were many review messagesof good content to praise or admire because peer review on Forum module was held in the real name.
From the free descriptive question, comments such as the following were obtained.

There were a lot of different points of view in people of the same generation.
I think that it was good to be able to feel the values and ideas of others.

I don’t know the timing was bad, or my content was hard to comment, but it was a little disappointing that I
couldn’t get comments so much.
Table 5: The Questionnaires for the Peer Review
Direction of Evaluation
Get Evaluation From
Other Students
Evaluate Other Students

Statement
I was able to find good points in my career plan.
Peer review helped to improve my career plan.
I was able to find good points in my career plan.
Peer review helped to improve my career plan.

Average (SD)4.25 (0.43)
3.75 (0.83)
3.88 (0.78)
4.38 (0.70)

CONCLUSION
In this study, we reported the practice of asynchronous e-learning course for undergraduate career
education based on questionnaire survey of career decision making self-efficacy. By comparing the CDMSE datafrom a national survey, it became clear that the average CDMSE of undergraduate students who took asynchronouse-learning courses is higher than that of national average. After this, we want to characterize student by comparing
the ratio of the low CDMSE group and the CDMSE high group.
The peer review learning in an asynchronous e-learning course, there is a problem of allocation ofevaluators and the difference of learning progress. Further, because of peer review using a real name in the forum, atendency to praise or admire was seen in review messages. It is necessary to review the practice in order to help
improve the career plan submission. Although no remarkable change of CDMSE was recognized after the practice,students show favorable feedback on interaction with other students. Thus almost all respondents said that they could
find their good points through the peer review learning. To enhance self-efficacy of the students with high CDMSE
originally, further improvements are needed in specific learning design and peer review system for asynchronouse-learning, such as community development to encourage active peer comment or scaffolding for community
building.
From the result of questionnaire survey with ARCS Motivation Model, we found that the answers about
confidence for the task are slightly lower than the other elements. Previous studies indicate that cognition of tasks
about career decision-making is closely related to a change of CDMSE (Shimomura 2000). It is suggested that toimprove someone's confidence for peer review learning might enhance CDMSE, so we will expand the scope of ourstudy to include cognition of tasks and make further investigations.

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