Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2019

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Middle and Secondary Education

Degree Program

Curriculum and Instruction, PhD

Committee Chair

Landrum, Timothy J.

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Balkin, Richard

Committee Member

Balkin, Richard

Committee Member

Chisholm, James S.

Committee Member

Hardy, Jessica

Author's Keywords

elearning; line learning; hybrid courses; blended courses; student perceptions

Abstract

The primary focus of this evaluation study was to describe students' perceptions of their course experiences within two distinct groups of students who participated in either a fully online or a hybrid/blended version of an introductory course. The groups differed in course format (hybrid versus online group) and measures used included primarily the seven scale scores on the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) (Walker & Fraser, 2005). Additionally students were asked to respond to one open-ended question designed to assess perceptions of the course delivery format specifically. Although findings must be interpreted with great caution, due primarily to low response rates, a sample limited to one community college, and a focus on perceptions alone rather than broader outcomes, the evaluation study leads to a number of preliminary conclusions. First, it appears that one key outcome from the survey is that students desire that instructors provide constant and prompt feedback to students whether it be negative or positive communication. Second, being able to apply the course content to workplace or life situations was seen as valuable to the students in the online section more so than those in the hybrid section. Third, while there was some negativity from the students enrolled in the online section, overall the comments in the open-ended questions portrayed the instructor in a positive light. Suggestions for further research on this topic include accessing broader and more diverse and representative samples of student participants, working to ensure higher response rates, and gaining measures of actual course impacts on learning or other performance outcomes, rather than relying on perceptions alone.

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