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Top1. Introduction
Since late 2019, due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 epidemic around the world, many schools have chosen to temporarily suspend on-campus teaching activities and switch from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. In addition, with the development of Internet and technology, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan encouraged teachers to adopt online or mobile platforms for students’ learning (Chao, Wu & Tsai, 2021). This study conducted an instructional experiment under these conditions. The researchers hope that by adopting the teaching strategies of cognitive apprenticeship (CA) and co-regulated learning (CRL), existing problems in the teaching field can be improved, and students may achieve better learning outcomes.
1.1 The Need for Cognitive Apprenticeship
In most traditional computer courses, the teaching mode is primarily teacher-centered; these skills-oriented courses are often taught in a didactic fashion. Students merely memorize and practice the content taught by the teacher; achieving high grades is the starting point for learning. However, in the teaching process of many traditional courses, out-of-date teaching examples that are not sufficiently practical are often used, which cannot truly help students deal with the real problems they will encounter in the workplace (Tsai, 2014; Tsai & Lee, 2012). Thus, traditional computer courses may cause graduates to lack competitiveness in the workplace.
In order to try to solve the aforementioned problems arising in traditional computing courses, this study searched the literature and compiled relevant papers, so as to adopt appropriate teaching methods to help students acquire practical computer skills in an online teaching environment. CA has the characteristic of solving problems in information courses and is widely used in various fields (García-Cabrero et al., 2018). Moreover, CA is a teaching method that refers to the guidance and guidance of experts in a specific field to develop skills in this field, promote contextual learning and improve learning outcomes (Calongne, Stricker, Truman, & Arenas, 2019). Therefore, in order to help students develop computer skills, this research adopts the CA teaching method in an online course to help them achieve good learning outcomes.
1.2 The Need for Co-Regulated Learning
As online courses are implemented, it is seen that they have many advantages compared with in-person teaching, but related problems and limitations have also emerged. For example, online teaching still lacks some of the benefits of in-person teaching, leading to such problems as: (1) the lack of physical interaction in online teaching can easily cause students to feel alienated, which may further lead to insufficient engagement in the course. Although the popularization of online courses is convenient, there is still a lack of interaction between students and teachers (Al Tawil, 2019); (2) when students encounter problems, it is difficult to solve them immediately, which may lead to absenteeism, withdrawal, and failing grades, etc.; (3) the popularization of mobile devices (mobile phones, tablets, and phones) may result in students being unable to concentrate on learning, causing problems such as poor academic performance (Tsai et al., 2018).
In order to help students develop regular learning habits and improve their online learning results, this research explores possible solutions and teaching methods, such as CRL, in an online course. This learning method entails learners and their partners jointly regulating their cognition, motivation, and behavior (Allal, 2020). Therefore, the researchers in this study adopted CRL to develop students’ computer skills, learning motivation, and experience of online learning in an online computing course.
In this current study, the researchers integrated CA and CRL in an online course and explored their effects on improving students’ computer skills, learning motivation, and experience of online learning. Thus, a quasi-experiment in ‘Applied Information Technology: Office Software’ course was conducted to explore the effects of CA and CRL. In addition, the best combination of the two teaching methods was also investigated in this research.