Evaluating effects of an open educational resource on improving performance of students in BIM courses

Despite widespread enthusiasm, there is little research on the performance of students, especially architecture students, in courses offered with open educational resources (OERs). The objective of this research is to develop and adopt an open educational resource (i.e., an open web-based multimedia platform) for teaching an architecture course and assess the effects of the open educational resource on improving the performance of architecture students. The building information modeling (BIM) course, taught to architecture, engineering, and construction students at the University of Texas at Arlington, was selected as the testbed. This study aimed to comparatively examine the performance of architecture, engineering, and construction students in the BIM course before and after adopting the open educational resource. Hypothesis tests were performed to compare the averages of students’ project and overall grades in two semesters that the BIM course was offered with and without the open educational resource. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) tests were used to assess the potential main and interaction effects of the open educational resource and control variables (i.e., GPA, major, employment status, family background, field experience, effort level, and past BIM experience) on the students’ overall or project grades. The averages of project and overall grades were improved in the semester that the open educational resource was provided. The results of t-tests show that these improvements in the average project and overall grades have been statistically significant. The results of ANOVA and ANCOVA tests show that the open educational resource was a significant factor in improving average overall and project grades even after considering the effects of the control variables. It is expected that the open educational resource helps architecture students succeed in the Building Information Modeling course, which is an essential component of a modern architecture curriculum.