Retention of ICT Skills Acquired in Face-to Face Training Course for Adult Learners
Abstract: “The Personal Computer for Beginners” is an ICT skills training course for PC beginners offered at the Open University of Japan (OUJ) since 2010. This paper reports on students’ perceived ICT skills measured using a five-point Likert scale at three time points: the beginning of the course (pre-session), the end of the course (post-session), and 1–3 years after attending the course (retention). We analyzed data from 722 students who completed all 18 items of the perceived ICT skills questionnaire at all three time points, developed clusters for pre-session, post-session, and retention ability, based on each student’s reported ICT skill level on each of the 18 dimensions, using the k-means method with the Hartigan–Wong algorithm, analyzed how each of the pre-course clusters shifted to post-course clusters, and then to retention clusters using a Sankey diagram. We also analyzed students’ comments on the course using a co-occurrence network method.
Presider: Annabell Bils, FernUniversität in Hagen