The Impact of Exemplars On The Academic Outcomes For Master’s In Education Online Graduate Students

Annotated exemplars have recently been scrutinized as an academic support strategy in the context of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). The idea is that using exemplars may front-load the system regarding student academic performance through the provision of meaningful feedback and task-specific comments before formal student submissions. More specifically, The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research regarding exemplar use has called for the investigation of these exemplars on academic performance for the online graduate student. The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental study was to determine if and to what extent the integration of annotated exemplars impacted the academic outcomes for Masters in Education online graduate students. Academic outcomes were designated as assessment grades and overall course grades. The study methodology and design were quantitative quasi-experimental using traditional pre-/post- techniques regarding this exemplar implementation with a convenience sample. The sample size of the experimental group is n = 17. The control group ranges from n = 25 to n = 27. The objective stated explicitly is to investigate if and to what extent the use of annotated exemplars impacts overarching student outcomes for graduate students at a university in the southwestern United States. The results showed no statistically significant difference between the control group and the experimental group for assignment grades, resulting in a retention of the null hypothesis. The results also indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the control group and the experimental group for overall course grades, resulting in a rejection of the null hypothesis. Potential areas of future research might include brick-and-mortar settings, larger sample sizes, other student populations, or a qualitative examination of student perceptions about exemplars.