Five instructors using WebCT in 16 courses in the School of Social Service and the School of Professional Studies participated in the study. Students were both surveyed and interviewed. All surveys were completed during the last meeting or the last week of the semester. Findings and Discussion From the preliminary analysis of the focus group data, length of course is a crucial factor in student evaluation of courseware. Courses offered over longer time frames have more slack, and therefore room for courseware problems.
Problems are more disruptive to student learning in brief or compressed courses.
The responses to the focus group questions distributed according to the type of course which is also associated with frequency of meetings. It is unclear if the difficulties and dissatisfaction reported by the students in nine of the sixteen courses were associated with the attempt to deliver practice methods content or the lack of experience with the courseware. Access was the predominant problem. Students who have extended exposure to WebCT, through ongoing assignments or ongoing access to course materials, were more likely to master it, and consequently had greater comfort with it than the less frequent users. Utility was another issue of concern for students.