When digitally marketing an online educational program, degree or course, an institution must realize the target market which it is trying to reach. However, the demographics of the online student is extremely diverse, making marketing efforts difficult. With such a demographically diverse online student population to attract, it is important to understand what attributes make current online students satisfied or dissatisfied with the online education experience. Once these attributes are understood, organizations can effectively formulate digital marketing strategy to attract future students. While the efforts to understand satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the online student have been numerous, these studies have mainly centered upon secular organizations. Therefore, to contribute to the literature, this study identifies which attributes make online students satisfied or dissatisfied within the faith-based online educational environment. The results of the study may help organizations and educational institutions with a faith-based mission be more effective in their digital marketing efforts to attract and enroll online students. While the efforts to understand satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the online student have been numerous, these studies have mainly centered upon secular organizations. Therefore, to contribute to the literature, this study identifies which attributes make online students satisfied or dissatisfied within the faith-based online educational environment. The results of the study may help organizations and educational institutions with a faith-based mission be more effective in their digital marketing efforts to attract and enroll online students.

Online doctoral education enrollment continues to rise, and the number of academic institutions who offer the degrees are increasing proportionately. Various types of institutions are involved in this growth, including those that are faith-based. Due to the competitive nature of all online doctoral degrees, including faith-based and secular programs, it is imperative to understand the needs and concerns of the students who enroll in such programs. Students enrolled in a faith-based university online doctoral program were surveyed regarding their concerns about online doctoral education. The results revealed three main themes of concerns/non-concerns, and these results could be beneficial to faith-based institutions who offer online doctoral education or plan to do so in the future.

Over the last several decades, school choice – in the context of educational systems that are available to choose from as well as the reasons why parents choose what they do for their child – has become a topic of interest to both educational researchers and the public at large. The Seventh-day Adventist school system, like other faith-based institutions, is uniquely positioned in this subject, as it is an educational organization framed by a religious denomination. In addition to the typical factors such as academic standards, curricular offerings and peer influence, the issue of school choice within this context also involves complex layers of culture and religiosity and spirituality. Are parents able to disengage themselves from the trappings of those expectations and beliefs and objectively choose a school system for their child? Or are religious background and experience simply too embedded into one’s psyche – and, as an extension – one’s choices to ever fully disentangle that subtext from the decision-making process? This mixed-methods study sought to better understand the relationship between parental religiosity and school choice, specifically within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. In order to assess the influence of Adventist culture, doctrinal commitment and general religiosity, a cultural domain had to first be established. Following the methodology as laid out in cultural consensus theory, free-listing and rank-ordering tasks were given to two separate, geographically representative samples from across the continental United States. Derived from those conversations, statements were then developed that captured characteristics and behavior of a member who adhered to traditional Seventh-day Adventist culture. Those statements were written into the survey instrument, alongside validated scales for general religiosity and Adventist doctrinal commitment. The population for this study targeted any Seventh-day Adventist member in America who had K-12 school-aged children. The survey was developed in SurveyMonkey and distributed through church communiqué (websites, bulletins, announcements, etc.), official administrative channels such as ministerial department newsletters and video announcements, and social media. Over 1,000 responses came in and the data was analyzed through SPSS, specifically examining patterns of school choice among those with high or low general religiosity, doctrinal commitment and Adventist culture. The results of the data analysis demonstrated clear and significant associations between several key variables and the dependent variable of school choice. Several variables, such as Adventist culture, doctrinal commitment and a parent’s own educational background, emerged as predictors for school choice when binary logistic regressions were conducted. Adventist culture proved to be a multi-factorial construct, interacting with other variables in different ways. The conclusions from this study point to several implications for K-12 Adventist education, particularly in the area of marketing to Adventist families and further research could certainly explore that more fully.

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