Changes in Course Design and Their Impact on Student Learning

This article aims to analyse the impact of a methodological change in the design of courses, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the learning experience of students. According to this new methodology, each course is conceived as a sequence composed of a set of activities called challenges. Its objectives are: to ensure that competency-based design effectively reaches students’ educational activities, to contextualize these educational activities within challenges and situations related to the professional field or daily life of students, applying the principles of situated learning, and to implement a methodology and resource management system based on content curation closely linked to the learning process. To analyse these effects, we present an empirical study to understand the influence of the new methodology on student satisfaction. A quantitative analysis is conducted, taking into account various variables from a sample of around 8000 students in quantitative courses within the online Bachelor's program in Economics and Business at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. The analyses show that student satisfaction has been affected by the new methodology. The new methodology has improved student organization in terms of workload, their involvement in the learning process due to the real-world application of what is proposed in each of the activities, and satisfaction with the provided resources as it specifies how they are expected to work with them. In summary, the new methodology has allowed for the updating of courses, meeting the needs of students, and creating a high-quality learning design.