Evaluation of the Impact of Webinar on Teaching Mathematics to Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Webinar is an application of video conferencing to communicate with a group of persons and have discussions as if all are in the same place. It is a handy tool for distance learning and educational-based communication. Employing webinars in education has the advantage of helping users achieve their goals in their comfort zones. In this study, a survey of 250 undergraduate students and 50 mathematics teachers on the impact of webinars on the teaching of mathematics was carried out. The students were divided into 50 students majoring in mathematics and 200 students who offered mathematics as a compulsory course. All the teachers were university lecturers currently teaching mathematics in the universities in Rivers State, Nigeria. All the subjects are familiar with the webinar. Fourteen-item Likert Scale questionnaire was used for the study. Data collected were analyzed using a chi-square test at a .05 significance level. The result reveals that webinars are an acceptable medium for teaching mathematics but with reservations. The proviso is that it should be used where one–to–one interaction is impossible. Secondly, the webinar package should be wealthy so that while discussing, it would be easy to understand and waste of resources on data avoided.