Measuring Efficiency of Teaching Mathematics Online: Experiences with WeBWorK

Nowadays it is pretty common to use ICT in teaching in higher education. Efficiency of these tools – compared with the traditional ways of learning –, however, is not well known. In this paper I present the results of a research that I made at the Calgary University in 2010, aiming to find out if the online problem solving system they use, WeBWorK is a proper tool of teaching mathematics or not. I analyzed the attitudes of the students towards WeBWorK revealed in a survey, and the effect of the program on the grades of courses in mathematics. According to the results we may assume that WeBWorK at least doesn’t worsen student's performance, however, there are some students groups for whom it causes difficulties to use such a program.