College students' conceptions of learning management: The difference between traditional (face-to-face) instruction and Web-based learning environments

This study investigates the differences between students' conceptions of learning management via traditional instruction and Web-based learning environments. The Conceptions of Learning Management Inventory (COLM) was administered to 259 Taiwanese college students majoring in Business Administration. The COLM has six factors (categories), namely, learning management as memorizing, testing, applying, gaining higher status, understanding, and seeing in a new way. These categories are considered as being in a hierarchical order, from lower-level to higher-level. The results suggest that the students agree more with the 'seeing in a new way' category when learning management in a Web-based environment, while they show stronger acknowledgement of the conceptions of the 'memorizing', 'testing', 'gaining higher status', and 'applying' categories when learning management via traditional instruction. It is suggested that Web-based instruction can promote students' higher-level conceptions of learning management.