Committee Chair

Miller, Ted L.

Committee Member

Crawford, Elizabeth K.; Rausch, David W.; Banks, Steven R.

Department

School of Professional Studies

College

College of Health, Education, and Professional Studies

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Online learning has become ubiquitous with higher education and has catalyzed many changes in teaching and learning, particularly in academic technology. However, foundational frameworks for supporting learning in a virtual environment argue that learners need very similar, if not more, instructional engagement and support as the traditional classroom. Moore’s (1989) three types of interaction and Garrison & Akyol’s (2013) community of inquiry theoretical framework opine the importance of social engagement on the part of instructors and students in the online classroom, further asserting that learner-to-instructor interactions are essential to supporting student satisfaction and learning. Nevertheless, there are few studies, particularly quantitative studies, that examine the relationship between instructor participation in online courses and student participation and achievement. This study analyzed the relationship between select forms of instructor participation, including course announcements and discussion board posts, and student participation and achievement, represented by student course accesses, clicks within a course, time in a course, discussion board posts, and final course grade. The researcher utilized data available in the learning management system (LMS) log files from over 500 online master’s degree courses delivered at a private nonprofit university in the Northwest United States. The results of the multiple regression and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) analyses on the data from the logs showed significant relationships between instructor participation and student participation as well as student participation and achievement within an online course. No significant relationship was identified between instructor participation and student achievement. Potential explanations for this discrepancy and opportunities for future research are also discussed.

Degree

Ed. D.; A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Education.

Date

8-2020

Name

Web-based instruction

Keyword

LMS; Activity logs; Teacher presence; Learner to instructor interaction; eLearning; Learning systems

Document Type

Doctoral dissertations

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

xiii, 112 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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