Wikipedia has positive impact on academic performance of master's degree students

Wikipedia is an open educational resource of growing importance used more and more frequently in higher education. Even so, up to now there has been little empirical evidence of its contribution to students' academic performance. One recent UOC study, by researchers in the Digital Business Research Group (DigiBiz), has shown that active use of Wikipedia in addition to traditional learning resources has a positive effect on academic performance amongst students in higher education. The research revealed that the encyclopaedia has high value for students because it provides up-to-date, reliable and useful information.

According to previous studies, professors rarely recommend using Wikipedia as a principal learning resource. If anything, they suggest it be used in addition to conventional materials such as books, articles and case studies. But the results of the UOC analysis show that including Wikipedia as a principal source of information improves students' academic results.

The research project analysed 2,330 students studying for bachelor's degrees in Business Administration and Management, Tourism and Marketing and Market Research at the UOC enrolled on courses related to consumer behaviour, human resources, marketing and statistics. Researchers, Antoni Meseguer, Inma Rodríguez, Gisela Ammetller and Eva Rimbau compared courses on which students actively used Wikipedia as part of their studies with those that did not. The results showed that all the groups that actively used the online encyclopaedia achieved a higher average mark (6.85) than those that did not (6.13).

Wikipedia, highly valued by students

The conclusion drawn from the results was that using the encyclopaedia and obtaining good academic results creates a positive image of Wikipedia among students. The resource can be leveraged by university students on a number of levels. "Firstly, it enables them to obtain information to build their own knowledge and, particularly for those well-versed in its use, it provides them with more specific information to clarify issues," said UOC researcher Antoni Meseguer.

Secondly it lends conventional learning resources a higher value, because it provides easily accessible, reliable, up-to-date information. "For them its total accessibility is very important, as is the fact that they can find external links and plentiful cited references in the articles, and verify their accuracy," added the expert, who is also a member of the teaching staff at the UOC's Faculty of Economics and Business.

Intensity of use of Wikipedia and academic performance depend on discipline

The positive impact of using Wikipedia on students' marks is most noticeable in the courses related to consumer behaviour (+0.904) and human resources (+0.705). On the other two courses, the students that used Wikipedia also achieved higher marks, but did not reap the same academic benefit (marketing, +0.407; statistics, +0.634).

"Previous studies have shown that the way information is treated can be more or less accurate depending on the discipline. Therefore, teachers' opinions of Wikipedia vary according to which discipline they're in," Meseguer noted. "Bearing that in mind, it seems reasonable to think that students taking courses in different areas of knowledge benefit differently from the use they make of Wikipedia."

The results also show that students' perceptions of Wikipedia do not generally depend on their academic performance, although they are influenced by the discipline of each course.

Wikipedia contributes to deeper understanding and improved critical thinking

Using a great variety of information and learning resources, like Wikipedia, can prove a huge challenge for students when trying to relate, organize and integrate information from diverse sources and build coherent knowledge. Meseguer said: "When there are inconsistencies between sources of information students look at the entire content worked on to integrate it appropriately. This aids deeper, more complete understanding of the subject, including various perspectives and ideas, plus it improve critical thinking skills."

"The results of this research can help professors and higher education professionals to overcome the mistrust of Wikipedia and foster its inclusion in the set of learning resources of the various courses," he noted. "We recommend that the actors of higher education promote its use as a main source of information, along with conventional teaching materials, to offer students a richer diversity of information and learning resources."

Meseguer concluded: "Even so, we should remember that there's room for improvement in many Wikipedia articles, particularly in regard to thoroughness – especially compared to conventional learning resources. And, although students' perception of the benefits of learning from Wikipedia is positive, regardless of their academic level, this perception is somewhat lower than their perception of conventional materials."

UOC R&I 

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) contribute to solving the challenges facing the global societies of the 21st century by studying ICTs' interactions with human activity, with a specific focus on e-learning and e-health. Over 400 researchers and 48 research groups work among the University's 7 faculties and 3 research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), the eLearn Center (eLC) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The United Nations 2030 Agenda's Sustainable Development Goals and open knowledge provide strategic pillars on which the UOC's teaching, research and innovation are built. More information: research.uoc.edu.

 

Reference article

Meseguer-Artola, A.; Rodríguez-Ardura, I.; Ammetller, G.; Rimbau-Gilabert, E. (2020). "Academic impact and perceived value of Wikipedia as a primary learning resource in higher education". Profesional de la Información. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.29