Course Related Apps Experiences for New International Students at RIT

With the remarkable speed of expansion in technology, college students are not only faced with the challenge of managing their life and schoolwork; as apps constantly emerge for specified functions, students are faced yet with another challenge -- technology or app overload. With this context in mind, we conducted a qualitative study to understand the challenges and benefits of the course-related apps at RIT for student populations. We conducted our qualitative study by interviewing 8 new RIT International students; after encoding analysis within our group, the results suggested an overall satisfaction towards the apps, with room for improvement in the functioning of the Pulse app, calendar features, and deadline notification. Most importantly, 75% of the participants supported the idea of having a single integrated app.

Project Type
Group Research Project

Role
Qualitative Research
Conducting interviews
Analyzing data
Writing research paper

Deliverables
A Qualitative research paper

Duration
3 weeks

Motivation for this Research

One of the motivations of this study was our background as students of RIT and users of the course-related apps ourselves. Being part of the student population, we have direct knowledge and experience of the stress relating to managing and keeping up with coursework; having used the apps ourselves, we have accumulated a lot of insight into both the benefits and drawbacks of using them. Meanwhile, educational apps and tools that aim at efficiency, organization, and better retention of course materials coexist with school platform apps and may interact in supportive ways as a student chooses to apply them. It may be impractical to expect a course app to specialize in actively facilitating and enhancing a student’s study activities like specific management and efficiency apps do; but holding the course-related apps against a higher standard may generate more insight regarding what can be done, instead of satisficing for their performing of basic functions. Basic reliability and responsiveness in communication were within the landscape of the study design, but we did probe beyond by exploring and raising questions regarding whether the apps did extra (e.g., help manage coursework better). As we delve into this problem, we expect to find insight into how the apps may improve as they address the challenges of its critical users, which in this case are students.

Data Collection

In order to study the experiences of students in their utilization of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) study-related applications, a series of semi-structured interviews was conducted to dig into what students go through when they use study-related apps. These interviews let us be flexible and ask critical questions systematically, giving us a good look at things from the student's point of view. This approach would help us get in-depth and detailed responses, letting us dive into how students deal with RIT apps. It allowed us to zoom in on specific parts of their experiences, getting both the big picture and the small details. By aligning our interview method with what we wanted to discover, we ensured our research was solid, bringing out a deep and detailed understanding of what the students had to say and setting the stage for looking at the challenges they faced.

Analysis and Results

Our analysis involved all authors going through responses to each participant they interviewed. From these responses, they defined themes which were then grouped together by one author to perform thematic analysis. Concretely, our results provide interesting findings on the factors that contribute to the unsatisfactory course-related apps among new international students in RIT. They are listed below:

Time-consuming: The need for frequent log-in on the MyCourses website.
Missing Important Information: Missing important notifications such as deadlines for the discussion section on MyCourses.
Remote Learning: Unclear organization of assignments on MyCourses by professors.
Mobile Responsiveness: Having difficulties logging in and submitting assignments on MyCourses if using a mobile device.
Lack of Awareness: lack of awareness of certain functions or even the existence of course-related apps such as the Pulse app.
Technical Issues.

Limitations and Future Work

There may be some possible limitations in this study. The study was conducted with a limited sample size that shared similar characteristics such as age group, level of technical expertise, educational background, and study major. This homogeneity in the sample may limit the generalizability of the findings to all RIT students who use course-related apps.
The study could be further improved by conducting a survey with a larger sample to identify which features are most helpful to students and to make recommendations for how the apps could be improved.
The study could also be expanded to include other types of apps that may be helpful to new international students, such as Tiger Safe app, Career Connect app, Tiger Connect, Passio GO! (busses), student information systems.