Policy analysis is a tool used by policy analysts to understand the complexity of policy. Different analysts use diverse models of policy analysis but they seldom agree on the model that is the most ideal for analysing policy. This study is geared towards a policy analysis of e-learning at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Using both quantitative and qualitative data, the study showed that the implementation of e-learning at UKZN has various characteristics that cannot be explained exhaustively within the framework of a single model of policy analysis. In the absence of an institutional e-learning policy framework, various actors and subsystems are actively implementing e-learning at UKZN. This negates the stagist model of policy analysis, according to which, policy is made up of logical and sequential stages with one stage – e.g. policy formulation – preceding the other – e.g. implementation. This is clearly not the case at UKZN where e-learning is being implemented in the absence of a formal policy framework. Due to the high ambiguity and low conflict that characterize the implementation of e-learning at UKZN, the study found that e-learning at UKZN could be situated within Matland’s ambiguity/conflict model. The need to contextualise e-learning is a key concern expressed by participants in the study. The study also found that the willingness to implement e-learning is significantly high with 84.6% of those surveyed expressing a willingness to implement e-learning. Similarly, more than half of respondents are of the view that UKZN needs to develop an e-learning policy framework. This approach fits into the incremental model according to which policy formulation is gradual and it is informed by the learning that emerges from implementation. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

Much of what technical communicators know about language use is based on spoken or written communication; however, newer media complicate those boundaries. Spoken and written language differ primarily in the use of metadiscourse, language that aids interpretation of propositions. While research shows that metadiscourse aids in retention and attitude change in both print and speech, none exists to show whether this is true in a medium like the Internet, which has qualities of both. Technical communicators need this information because they must compose similar messages in several media: advertising, system help, business training, and health education are commonly delivered in multimedia formats, primarily in print and the Internet.Most critical of these messages is health education, in which technical communicators must make treatment accessible to patients at home. Not only does this task require clear communication, but also it requires convincing patients to attend to the information, have positive attitudes about illness or self-care, and remember the information-these are the ingredients needed for learning. With good reason, healthcare providers are investing many resources into Internet health education, but technical communicators lack guidance on effective use of the medium. Research in this area focuses on measuring outcomes of existing programs rather than on systematically identifying what works and why.The present study examined language use (i.e., metadiscourse) and medium (i.e., Internet) in health education about stress management. This study reviews existing research in these areas and posits persuasion and social influence theory as a basis for understanding the persuasive abilities of health educational materials, or the abilities of the materials to convince patients to learn health information, change attitudes about illness and treatment, and change health-related behaviors.To test this theory, 120 students from a Southern university voluntarily read interventions developed to isolate the effects of metadiscourse and media on cognitive processing, attitudes, behavior intentions, and knowledge. Repeated measure multivariate analyses revealed that regardless of metadiscourse or medium, participants' knowledge about stress management increased and was maintained over time; however, favorable attitudes were not maintained over time. Results indicate that peripheral rather than central route persuasion occurred, and, therefore, knowledge gains are likely to be short-term. Suggestions for future research are provided and recommendations for theoretical development are discussed. / Department of English

The focus of this research is in the area of virtual schooling at the K-12 level, specifically looking into teachers’ perceptions of important traits of teacher effectiveness and student progress in this online learning environment. Such a study is important in Indiana, as this is the first time in public school history when there is now a new choice for students to attend a school such as this. The research is a mixed methods approach utilizing surveys and interviews to gather data. The findings from this research indicate several teacher characteristics are important. Teachers should be communicative, responsive, and manage their time well. Student characteristics considered important are access to computer and Internet, strong support from their family or learning coach, and effective time management skills. A top recommendation emerging from this study is the development of a screener for parents to take before enrollment to determine whether this type of learning environment would be the best fit for their student(s)/child, based on the important student characteristics. Other recommendations emerging from this study included professional development, especially in the areas of technology and communication for the school’s teachers and the relationship with between colleges and universities that prepare teachers that would lead to development of specific training and lab experience in a virtual setting. / Department of Educational Leadership

One of the core issues in distance education has been the adequacy of assessment of student experiences and the interaction between faculty and students. This challenge has become even greater with the increase in the numbers of online courses in nursing. Distance education programs that are delivered totally online have many advantages and some disadvantages. Masters level nursing students are choosing online programs for convenience, flexibility, and quality. The purpose of this study was two-fold: to describe Masters nursing students’ perceptions of online courses between 2005 and 2009, as expressed through word data in a web evaluation survey; and to analyze the student perceptions of the online learning environment for trends and themes. The questions of this investigation were the following: 1. What perceptions do Masters nursing students have of their online courses (2005-2009) as expressed through word data in a web evaluation survey? 2. What recommendations can be made for continuous improvement and best practices in programming and evaluation methods based on student perceptions. This research utilized Constructivist Theory as a theoretical model. There were 1625 student comments and 903 suggestions that were analyzed for themes and placed in categories. A qualitative analysis approach was utilized to create categories and look for trends in the data. There were six categories gleaned from the comments and six more that were found as a result of reviewing the suggestions that were made for future course offerings. The researcher found that there was some overlap between the categories of the comments and those of the suggestions. The perception of the students regarding their online course experience in the graduate nursing program was very positive. The flexibility and independence that the online environment offered was appreciated. Blackboard was viewed very positively and students felt that it was easy to use. Students enjoyed the interaction with peers and with faculty and felt it was a valuable learning experience. Recommendations were identified, based on the findings related to the use of technology, recruitment and retention of faculty, and teaching strategies and learning styles. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Educational Studies

This study examined the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) constructed by a group of 24 pre-service elementary teacher participants as they learned about the moon’s phases, inquiry learning, and use of the Internet message boards as a teaching tool as a part of their science teaching methods course. The MOON Project (More Observations On Nature), an exploration of inquiry teaching via e-learning, matched the pre-service elementary teacher participants with schoolchildren in grades 4-8 around the world. Upon completion of a 4-week moon observation phase, the participants led the schoolchildren in a discussion of their observations via Blackboard™. This mixed methods study followed a quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design. The participants’ content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and perceptions about their knowledge were documented using questionnaires, essays, and tests as they entered this experience and again as they exited. Qualitative and quantitative methods and analysis established that the increase in pre-service teachers’ content and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as well as their perceptions of the knowledge gained was statistically significant at the conclusion of the project. However, they took away understandings of why the moon changes shape that were basic at best and fraught with a statistically significant increase in misconceptions. None of the instruments supported the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of increased PCK. The pre-service teachers had mixed perceptions about teaching over the Internet, mostly due to the degree to which their elementary student groups responded with focus to questions and discussions or, in some cases, participated at all. The findings and recommendations speak to teacher educators about the methodology used in teacher education programs. / Department of Biology

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between twenty-first century instructional methods and student learning experiences. To do so, a typical and representative group of eight students was selected for qualitative interviews which ascertained student perception of their engagement in a typical New Media class. The study determined the perceived impact of a "student-centered instructional approach to video creation" on levels of student engagement in order to understand the nature of engagement and how they moved towards higher levels of independent learning. Transcripts of these interviews were used to identify a thematic structure of student perceptions of their engagement in a classroom where a "student-centered instruction approach to video creation" was used. Lastly, using the teacher's professional reflections, notes, and anecdotal reports from the class, students' stories of engagement were created to illustrate each unique journey toward self-engaged independence from the teacher's perspective. The results of this data pointed to three meta-themes. Meta-theme 1: Positive Relationships and Affective Climate, Meta-theme 2: Personalized, Student-centered Supported Independence, and Meta-theme 3: Accelerated Lift and Independent Learning. / xiv, 371 leaves ; 29 cm

In this study, the participants&rsquo / perceptions about Information Technologies Certificate Program which was based on synchronous and asynchronous communication methods over the Internet offered by cooperation of Middle East Technical University, Computer Engineering Department and Continuing Education Center were examined. This online certificate program started in May 1998. The program includes eight fundamental courses of Computer Engineering Department and comprised of four semesters lasting nine months. The courses in the program are given by instructors of Computer Engineering Department. In the study, participants&rsquo / perceptions about Information Technologies Certificate Program in regard to four major items which were preferences, course effectiveness, learner support and computer mediated communication were examined and the study included the 3rd, 4th and 5th programs&rsquo / participants who attended the certificate programs. The data were collected by using online survey at the end of the each term of programs and analyzed by using descriptive statistical analyzing methods. The results showed that there was a parallelism between participants&rsquo / perceptions and aims of Information Technologies Certificate Program. It was revealed that the courses in the program were effective in general and majority of the participants found learner support satisfied. The results showed that the participants were satisfied with computer mediated communication provided in program, however, the chat sessions were not beneficial enough. In addition to these, participants made important suggestions to improve the program.

Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 346-360). / Electronic reproduction. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xviii, 360 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

<p>Web technologies have necessitated a transformation culture in higher education<br /> institutions. Many of these institutions are employing web technologies whose<br /> development, for varying reasons, is not supported by research in their field and<br /> domain of use. One such field is instructional design for the web learning.<br /> Although there is a lot of research on the most effective instructional design<br /> strategies, the use of research for web-based learning applications has been<br /> limited. <br /> <br /> This thesis reports on a study aimed at transforming the research on instructional<br /> design into practice by designing an instructional design system and providing an<br /> argument for its implementation. The argument is intended to facilitate the design<br /> and development of an instructional design subsystem of the web, that would in<br /> turn offer effective and efficient ways for creating web-based learning materials<br /> to instructors.<br /> <br /> The study started by examining the various paradigms, theories and practices of<br /> instructional design with the intent of using them to enrich and improve the<br /> practice of instructional design in web learning. It undertook a thorough and<br /> systematic review of the literature on instructional design in order to come up<br /> with an instructional design system. The design approach used successful design<br /> patterns that have been used elsewhere, e.g. in software design, to create common<br /> responses or solutions to recurrent problems and circumstances. Instructional<br /> design patterns were identified in this study as the recurrent problems or processes<br /> instructional designers go through while creating instructional materials, whose<br /> solutions can be reused over and over again.<br /> <br /> This study used an iterative developmental research process of finding and<br /> modelling an instructional design process as the research methodology. This<br /> process follows and builds on existing research on instructional models, theories<br /> and strategies, and ensures that the same methodology can be used to test the<br /> theories in the design, thus improving both the research and the design.</p>

This thesis is an investigation of the role of 'social presence' in on-line interaction of the students in Hong Kong. It seeks to examine the factors that students believe affect their on-line interaction with each other and with the tutor. Hypotheses were developed to examine the relationship between language competence, paralanguage, discussion topic, cultural variables and on-line interaction. The study was carried out in three stages: focus groups; survey; and interviews. The purpose of the focus groups was to determine the factors other than those identified in the literature that might affect the on-line learning of the students. There were four focus groups involving 17 people and 10 hours of interview time. A great deal of interesting and relevant information was generated. The second stage involved a questionnaire that sought data about the factors identified in the focus groups and the literature review to test the hypotheses. There was an open-ended question asking students whether there were other factors that they believe might affect their on-line interaction. The sample was made up of 100 students and 57 valid responses were received. The third stage involved interviews with three students to follow up answers to the open-ended question in the survey. The participants in the interviews were invited to go through their answers to the open-ended question (i.e., factors that they think will affect on-line interactions) and to explain how they think the factors actually affected their on-line interactions. The results from the focus groups were analyzed using content analysis; the results from the survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics including the chi-square test. Results show that the Chinese students in the present study accepted computer-mediated communication and had positive perceptions of on-line discussion. Similar to suggestions in the literature, it was found that social presence could be cultured among the on-line participants. For successful on-line learning, factors such as students' language competence, discussion topic, and tutor's involvement are important. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2009