University of the West of England,
School of Construction Economics,
Management & Engineering,
Faculty of the Built Environment,
Frenchay Campus,
Coldharbour Lane,
Bristol.
BS16 1QY

Contact: Brian Dury
Tel: 0117 3443060
Email: Brian.Dury@uwe.ac.uk

• provide encouragement to start using Compact, which, it is believed, has the potential to provide a better way of teaching concrete technology and design;
  
• present an example of the way in which Compact can be employed within higher education teaching and learning that has been evaluated by professional educationalists;
  
• present a realistic picture of the effects of using CAL by describing the evaluation of this particular implementation of Compact, outlining both the advantages and disadvantages;
  
• provide the resources developed for this particular uptake of Compact for use and development within other higher education settings.

Resources:
Resources required to implement Compact include:

• computer workstations (with WEB access if used from home);
  
• introductory overview of Compact and worksheets to guide students through;
  
• tutorial worksheets to compliment CAL.
  

Details:
Context - The COMPACT Software and the 'Embedding Compact' Project
The early and mid nineties saw a rapid development of CAL packages in the UK. These were strongly supported by government initiatives such as the HEFCE Ringed Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP). This is a major multi-million pound UK government initiative launched in 1992. However, it was increasingly found that the software packages produces in the early phases of this initiative could not outlive the funding period of the project within which they were developed. Such CAL products were also problematic in that they failed to become actually used within the teaching process.

In an attempt to overcome this problem, HEFCE launched TLTP3 in 1998. The aim of this programme is to provide funding to move towards 'embedding' and evaluating a selected number of TLTP2 CAL products into everyday teaching and learning in the UK tertiary sector.

COMPACT (COMPuter Aided Concrete Teaching) was one of the TLTP2 software packages that received support to become embedded within higher education teaching practices.

COMPACT is a suite of CAL modules which consists of eleven topics on concrete technology and the design of concrete structures to Eurocode where appropriate. COMPACT can be downloaded from http://www.Compact.org.uk/

Compact Online - front screen

The topics covered include:

1. Advanced Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures
   
2. Basic Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures
   
3. Buildability
   
4. Conceptual Design of Concrete Structures
   
5. Concrete as a Material (including Mix Design)
   
6. Concrete Bridges
   
7. Concrete Site Practice
   
8. Drawing and Detailing of Concrete Structures
   
9. Foundations and Retaining Walls
   
10. Pre-cast Concrete Structures
    
11. Pre-stressed Concrete Structures

The Use of Compact at The University of the West of England
Compact was used in the UWE's Faculty of the Built Environment within a HND Building Studies first year module: Building Material and Environments. The materials part of this module occupied the first term (October-December). Scheduled teaching comprised twelve lectures, twelve tutorials and laboratory work on steels and concrete. Concrete was scheduled to occupy about one third of the teaching time from weeks 5 to 8. There were fifteen students on the module. The module is assessed by examination and coursework (experimental reports).

Engineering Materials / Concrete Durability Questions

Answers to Durability Questions

The objective was to use the Materials module of the Compact suite of software to reinforce the lectures on concrete, which were taking place in parallel, and to assist students to complete the report on the experimental work on concrete. Five one-hour tutorial sessions took place in a computer room, replacing traditional problem solving tutorials.

In the first instance students were provided with a brief paper-based introduction to an overview of Compact and a set of four worksheets to guide them through the Materials module. The worksheet contained separate tasks for each tutorial session and directed the student to the relevant topics within Compact to support learning.

Notably no changes were made to the lecture material from the previous year so order and content was often different from that within Compact. However, it was assumed that students would work through Compact in a linear manner and identify the material that corresponded to the lecture material.

Lecturer Motivations and Expectations.
The reason for using Compact was to improve the students' understanding of concrete by making the learning environment more interesting, more visual and more interactive.

It was hoped that students would use Compact in their own private study time, at the University or at home, but, realistically, it was thought necessary to schedule enough tutorial time for most of the tutorial sheets to be completed in class. Consequently, there was no reduction in lecturer's time as a result of the use of Compact.

It was assumed that students would recognise, with some prompting from the brief, the topics covered in lectures and that dealing with the topics in a different order in the lectures and in Compact would not affect the reinforcement process.

Evaluation:
The process of evaluating the implementation of Compact at UWE began with an in-depth face-to-face interview with the lecturer aiming to employ the CAL suite of software. This initial interview aimed to ascertain the lecturer's motivations for, and expectations of, using Compact and to identify and discuss any potential issues or problems. However, perhaps the main objective of this interview was for the educational specialist conducting the student evaluation to gain a comprehensive understanding of the institution and the course in which Compact was to be introduced. This interview was audiotape recorded with the permission of the lecturer. Immediate transcription of the tape followed.

The second phase of the evaluation comprised of a focus group interview of a representative sample of those students that had used Compact (chosen according to relevant criteria including gender, academic ability and whether they were full or part time). The interview was again audiotape recorded and fully transcribed for analysis purposes.

The third phase of the evaluation consisted of a number of individual face-to-face interviews with the students. These interviews were semi-structured in format and aimed to explore in more details those issues raised within the focus group interview.

The fourth and final phase of the evaluation cycle consisted of another face-to-face interview with the lecturer responsible for implementing the Compact software. This interview had the primary objective of gauging the lecturers' response to the employment of Compact and the whole evaluation (in particular the findings that were fed back and discussed at this time). The implication of the evaluation findings in terms of potential changes to be made to either the resources developed or the manner in which Compact was integrated within the course was also discussed. Any plans to use Compact in the future were also outlined within this interview session.

Main Findings and Issues from the Student Evaluation
The majority of students found the brief paper based introduction and guidance for Compact adequate. However, a number of students felt that they needed more help in getting started and especially in proceeding through the software package.

Many of the students perceived there to be little point or purpose to the exercise of utilising Compact as it was not assessed. Thus, instead of working through worksheet within their tutorial session, many students surfed the net, emailed or completed other work (which was assessed and therefore considered more important).

A number of the students felt that the above scenario was in part attributable to the timing of the introduction to Compact. The time during which the students were encouraged to use Compact was considered the busiest part of the course with a number of deadlines for work to be submitted. Students therefore felt that had the Compact element of the course been at another time then they might not have been as tempted to use the time to complete other work.

Generally, the worksheets designed to accompany Compact were well received. However, for some students the instructions within the worksheets regarding which elements of Compact were to be completed were somewhat unclear. This resulted in students completing unnecessary sections that they found difficult and confusing.

In general the students perceived Compact in positive terms. They found it both useful and informative and particularly liked the graphs and images. Students felt that the graphs and images within Compact enabled them to understand concepts far more easily than those employed within lectures. Students also liked the way in which Compact afforded the opportunity to work at their own pace and also thought the questions were useful.

A few of the students felt that using Compact helped them learn more than attending lectures. However, most of the students felt that Compact helped them learn and understand more by reinforcing the material covered within lectures.

In comparison with traditional tutorial sessions Compact was perceived favourably, if only because of the interest the novelty factor of employing computers evoked.

None of the students had downloaded the software at this time (although most had their own computer or at least access to a friend's).

All of the students thought that they would use Compact for revision purposes. A number of the students felt that Compact would be easier to revise from than a book as it proceeded through topics one stage at a time.

Recommendations Made by Students
Most of the students felt that if some element of assessment were incorporated within the process of using Compact it would force them to actually use it. Although it was recognised that this would mean more work for them it was felt to be worthwhile in terms of the potential learning gains.

The students also felt that the tutorial sessions could have been improved by a more teacher-led approach. There was a general feeling that the whole class should have been taken through the software together with parallel interjections and explanations from the lecturer. It was particularly felt that a degree of verbal guidance relating the components of Compact to lecture topics would have been useful. For, whilst it was felt that Compact and the lecture course were well integrated, some students needed more help in recognising the links.

In terms of the overall structure and organisation of the course, students felt that it would have been more useful if the topics covered within both the lectures and tutorial sessions were in alliance.

A number of students felt that the coursework element of the course that required the utilisation of Compact should have been highlighted earlier (and in particularly during the tutorial sessions). It was suggested that this prior knowledge would have made the tutorial sessions and the use of Compact seem less futile.

Benefits:
The main benefits of implementing Compact can be summarised as:

• Compact can be used to provide technical support to reinforce lectures on concrete;
  
• Compact has made the learning environment more interesting by being visual and interactive;
  
• once introduced, students can access and work at they're own pace and time.

Issues and Lessons to be Learnt:
Contrary to prior expectations the lecturer found that students' approach to using
Compact was not at all linear. Rather, they were drawn to the interactive and quiz components of the software, which they attempted without first studying the background material.

In hindsight the lecturer also felt that the mix design exercise the students were asked to complete was perhaps too lengthy. However, the lecturer also noted that students did significantly better at concrete exam questions than other materials.

Ongoing Developments:
In retrospect, it was felt by the lecturer that there was a general need for greater correspondence between the lecture material and Compact. A need for a more prescriptive approach to the structure of the tutorial sessions also became evident. As a result of this pilot study changes have been made in the current year's teaching:

Concrete is now taught at the beginning of the semester, so that there are fewer distractions from coursework deadlines in other subjects. The lecture material has been modified in content and order to correspond more closely with Compact

More detailed and prescriptive tutorial sheets have been produced.

References, Further Reading and Sources of Further Related Information:
For further information on Compact see:
http://www.Compact.org.uk/