A critical factor of e-learning success is the e-learning readiness of the online user. However, there is a scarcity of studies on online instructors' e-learning readiness (E-Readiness) in an online learning environment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether there were correlations among online instructor E-Readiness dimensions and factors at the design and delivery stages that affect system outcomes. In this study, the DeLone and McLean model was used as a framework for research to test E-Readiness with the System Design stage (comprising System Quality, Information Quality, and Service Quality), System Delivery stage (comprising System Use, and User Satisfaction) and Net Benefits stage (comprising Net Benefits). A total of 113 online instructors at a Caribbean university system completed a Web-based questionnaire containing previously validated and adapted items. The questions were answered using a five-point Likert scale and the survey results were analyzed using aggregates and linear regression statistical methods. The results revealed that the e-learning systems success score of the university was 4.07 out of 5 or 81.4%, while the E-Readiness score of online instructors was 4.53 out of 5, or 90.6%. Linear regression analysis showed that E-Readiness was a significant and positive predictor of the System Design, System Delivery, and System Outcome stages and their associated dimensions. The results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that the constructs together accounted for 42.2% of the variance in Net Benefits. Of the six predictors in the model, User Satisfaction provided the largest unique contribution when the other predictors in the model were held constant. The other predictors in the model (System Quality, Service Quality, Information Quality, System Use and E-Readiness) were not statistically significant and provided no significant or unique contribution to Net Benefits. Further information is provided regarding factors affecting net benefits among online instructors using online learning environments. This information can be used to address online instructors' barriers to technology use.

Students' motivation has been identified as a critical factor for meaningful engagement and positive academic achievement in various educational settings. In particular, self-regulation strategies have been identified as important skills in online learning environments. However, applying self-regulation strategies, such as goal setting, strategic planning, and reflect performance takes significant effort. Without motivation, students will not enact these types of strategies. Autonomous self-regulation has been investigated in traditional classroom settings and there is ample empirical evidence of a significant relationship between autonomous self-regulation and engagement and academic achievement. However, such research was limited in online learning environments. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that affected students' autonomous or self-determined forms of regulation as defined in self-determination theory (SDT). The study examined the relations between students' self-regulated motivation and four other variables (students' interests in the course, students' perception of their instructor's interaction type, students' technology self-efficacy, and students' perception of the degree to which their online learning environment used constructivist-based pedagogy), and the interactions among these variables in college online courses. In addition, the study examined the relationship between students' autonomous forms of regulation and their engagement, learning achievement, interaction behaviors, and satisfaction in the online course. For students' interaction behaviors, the total number of authored and read messages, the total number of visits to the content page, the total number of visited topics in the content page, and total duration spent in the content page were examined. One hundred forty students in 19 online courses participated in this study. The results of hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed: (a) Both environmental factors, instructors' autonomy-supportive interaction and learning environments using constructivist-based pedagogy predicted students' autonomous self-regulated motivation (b) Students' autonomous self-regulated motivation predicted students' self-reported engagement, achievement, and satisfaction (c) Two personal factors, interest in the course and technology self-efficacy did not predict students' autonomous self-regulation (d) Students' autonomous self-regulated motivation did not predict any interaction behaviors. The findings from this study are largely congruent with prior theory and research in the fields of academic motivation, self-determination, and online learning, which note that environmental factors, instructors' autonomy-supportive interaction and constructivist-based pedagogy significantly affect students' autonomous self-regulation in online learning environments.

Increasingly the perceived benefits of using networked computers, software applications and computer simulations in learning activities are being exploited at all educational levels and within all curricula areas. As web-based and online software applications such as browsers, search engines, communication tools and data-bases mature, so does educator's use of this medium for teaching and learning. How we can investigate the impact of these technologies upon the educational experiences of learners was the fundamental concept addressed by this thesis. The study reports on the design, development and validation of a web-based survey instrument for use in online learning environments in tertiary education. The thesis investigated both previous psychosocial learning environment instrument development studies and the nature of environments created by the use of information and communication technologies. The research followed a two-phased instrument development process. Phase one focused on content validity, identifying salient scales and items and piloting the instrument with a limited audience. Phase two focused on construct validity, conducting an extensive field test with a web-based form and performing statistical analysis on the online data collected. Principal components analysis, with oblique and orthogonal rotations, confirmed the structure of a 35-item 7-scale instrument. The thesis concludes by confirming the new instrument, the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLLES), will allow conclusions to be drawn about student perceptions on the interactions occurring in their online environments in an economical and efficient manner.

This thesis reports a longitudinal study that investigated the factors affecting at-risk students' use of an online curriculum delivery mode for some Year 11 subjects. The study examined the skills and attitudes of the students during their online learning experience, and followed the teachers while they developed suitable teaching methods to be able to deliver their subject via online learning. Importantly, the students in the study were at risk of not completing subjects in the South Australian Certificate of Education (SALE) if some kind of curriculum intervention was not applied. Access to the school curriculum can be problematic for some young people for a variety of reasons, including a limited subject choice, an inability to attend programmed classes and exhibiting behaviour that is deemed to be inappropriate by school authorities. Students in this study were not able to study the subjects they wished because of timetable clashes, were not able to attend school regularly for personal reasons or had exhibited negative behaviour to their teachers and peers preventing them from attending certain classes. At the time of the study, all the students wished to complete their SALE, but limited access to the curriculum was likely to prevent this from occurring. The study used qualitative methods of data collection including interviews with students and teachers, analysis of students' work, electronic communications and other documents, and records of meetings. These were used to prepare case studies for each of the seven students involved. While the student sample was small, the varied personal experiences of the students in the study enabled the examination of many of the characteristics documented in the literature as those being associated with at-risk youth. / All the students involved in the study completed the NetLearning Project (NLP) unit(s) they had enrolled in, but each encountered different challenges. The case studies provided data that enabled identification of the characteristics students required to be successful online learners. Three clusters of factors relating to personal situations (reason for entry to the program, access to a home computer and continuity of schooling), skill factors (level of ICT and English literacy skills), and attitude to learning (willingness to persist and level of self-directedness) were identified as major contributors to students' ability to complete their units. The teacher case studies revealed that the characteristics required for teachers to operate effectively within the online learning environment include an ability to promote positive teacher-student relationships, a high level of ICT skills, good subject knowledge and curriculum understanding. In addition, teachers required initiative, persistence and collaborative skills. The findings of the study highlight the importance of attitudinal factors in determining the students and teachers success in the online environment and suggest that teacher-student relationships have a major impact on student learning outcomes, just as they do in the traditional classroom.

abstract: Public Mathematics Education is not at its best in the United States and technology is often seen as part of the solution to address this issue. With the existence of high-speed Internet, mobile technologies, ever-improving computer programming and graphing, the concepts of learning management systems (LMS’s) and online learning environments (OLE’s), technology-based learning has elevated to a whole new level. The new generation of online learning enables multi-modal utilization, and, interactivity with instant feedback, among the other precious characteristics identified in this study. The studies that evaluated the effects of online learning often measured the immediate impacts on student achievement; there are very few studies that have investigated the longer-term effects in addition to the short term ones. In this study, the effects of the new generation Online Learning Activity Based (OLAB) Curriculum on middle school students’ achievement in mathematics at the statewide high-stakes testing system were examined. The results pointed out that the treatment group performed better than the control group in the short term (immediately after the intervention), medium term (one year after the intervention), and long term (two years after the intervention) and that the results were statistically significant in the short and long terms. Within the context of this study, the researcher also examined some of the factors affecting student achievement while using the OLE as a supplemental resource, namely, the time and frequency of usage, professional development of the facilitators, modes of instruction, and fidelity of implementation. While the researcher detected positive correlations between all of the variables and student achievement, he observed that school culture is indeed a major feature creating the difference attributed to the treatment group teachers. The researcher discovered that among the treatment group teachers, the ones who spent more time on professional development, used the OLE with greater fidelity and attained greater gains in student achievement and interestingly they came from the same schools. This verified the importance of school culture in teachers’ attitudes toward making the most of the resources made available to them so as to achieve better results in terms of student success in high stakes tests. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2016

Over the last years, online learning has gained significant popularity, and this trend is expected to continue in the future. Online learning is a multi-dimensional activity where each dimension should be adequately supported by an online learning system to provide a fruitful learning experience to its users. Similar to online learning, a particular approach in the way systems are designed has gained increasing popularity over the last years as a result of the emergence of the computer network. Systems have started to be envisioned as integrated collections of components that are deployed over the network. This network-centric approach addresses some of the issues that are not directly addressed by the traditional architectural design approaches. We believe that such an approach can be employed for the architectural design of online learning environments (OLEs) where different dimensions of online learning are addressed by different components residing on the network. This thesis presents a network-centric system architecture for OLEs. The architecture is based on the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm and web services. The proposed architecture is described using a number of Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) representations. We also developed a quality model for OLEs and evaluated the architecture using this quality model. We believe that this research is an important first step in reconciling those two emerging ideas, namely online learning and network-centric architecture. This reconciliation is important as the flexible nature of SOA can be very useful in creating OLEs that address a wide variety of user needs. / Master of Science

The complexities of how people learn have plagued researchers for centuries. A range of experimental and non-experimental methodologies have been used to isolate and implement positive interventions for students' cognitive, meta-cognitive, behavioral, and socio-emotional successes in learning. But the face of learning is changing in the digital age. The value of accrued knowledge, popular throughout the industrial age, is being overpowered by the value of curiosity and the ability to ask critical questions. Most students can access the largest free collection of human knowledge (and cat videos) with ease using their phones or laptops and omnipresent cellular and Wi-Fi networks. Viewing this new-age capacity for connection as an opportunity, educational stakeholders have delegated many traditional learning tasks to online environments. With this influx of online learning, student errors can be corrected with immediacy, student data is more prevalent and actionable, and teachers can intervene with efficiency and efficacy. As such, endeavors in educational data mining, learning analytics, and authentic educational research at scale have grown popular in recent years; fields afforded by the luxuries of technology and driven by the age-old goal of understanding how people learn. This dissertation explores the evolution and application of ASSISTments Research, an approach to authentic educational research at scale that leverages ASSISTments, a popular online learning platform, to better understand how people learn. Part I details the evolution and advocacy of two tools that form the research arm of ASSISTments: the ASSISTments TestBed and the Assessment of Learning Infrastructure (ALI). An NSF funded Data Infrastructure Building Blocks grant (#1724889, $494,644 2017-2020), outlines goals for the new age of ASSISTments Research as a result of lessons learned in recent years. Part II details a personal application of these research tools with a focus on the framework of Self Determination Theory. The primary facets of this theory, thought to positively affect learning and intrinsic motivation, are investigated in depth through randomized controlled trials targeting Autonomy, Belonging, and Competence. Finally, a synthesis chapter highlights important connections between Parts I & II, offering lessons learned regarding ASSISTments Research and suggesting additional guidance for its future development, while broadly defining contributions to the Learning Sciences community.

The capacity for online learning environments to provide quality learning experiences for students has been the focus of much speculation and debate in the higher education sector from the late 1990s to the present day. In this area, 'quality' has become synonymous with engaging students in a learning community. This study reports on a qualitative research project designed to explore the significance of community for students when they study in online learning environments. This project used three case studies to explore tertiary students' thoughts and expectations about community in the online environment. The research was constructed iteratively. Data from the initial case suggested the need to explore the relationship between the constructed online learning environment and the development of learning communities or what I have termed Social Learning Support Networks (SLSN). To explore this issue further, the project was expanded and subsequent cases were chosen that included fundamentally different types of online learning environments. The project had two significant results. Firstly, students not only confirmed popular educational theories on the value of learning communities, but also described how this form of social connection might practically benefit their learning. Secondly, the project found that certain forms of synchronous online environments provided enhanced opportunities for students to form social connections that supported their learning. This project provides new evidence of the benefit of community for students studying online and argues that future online learning environments should be shaped by five key principles designed to foster a sense of social connection between students.

The purpose of this study is to examine in detail how a computer education teacher utilizes an online learning environment. The study tries to explore how a computer education teacher uses information technologies in classroom instruction, which methods s/he uses during integration process of the online learning environment, how s/he solves the problems s/he faced and his/her expectations from an online learning environment. Furthermore, based on the experiences of the computer education teacher use of online learning environments by other subject area teachers were pursued. In this study, within the framework of qualitative research paradigm a case study was conducted in the form of action research. Qualitative research methods were used. A computer education teacher formed the participant of the study with attributes of matching with the purpose and according to predetermined criteria. Results revealed that the teacher used the online learning environment to support his instruction. Implementation section of the online learning environment was preferred mostly. Use of online learning environment enabled the teacher to spare much time for dealing with students individually, providing other information source, and increasing students&rsquo / interest. The teacher utilized the online learning environment for preparing and supporting instruction: Preparing and providing alternative examples, supporting the evaluation process, and assigning homework. Integration of online learning environment is affected by content of lesson, content provided by the environment, and learning materials. The teacher perceived that his students became aware of responsibility of their own learning, become aware of information can be reached from other sources and were much active and participating more to the lessons. The computer teacher perceived that other subject teachers needed technical support, showed lack of access to technology resources, and lack of learning materials to enhance their classroom instruction with technology.

Digital technology is developing rapidly, and educators are currently in the process of exploring what opportunities new technology can have for learning and teaching. This applies not least to the field of education in programming, as   learning to program is a great challenge for many students. Therefore, educators and researchers have sought to find educationally effective digital learning resources to facilitate the programming learning process. In this thesis, multimodal online learning environments, providing accessible and learner-focused learning activities, and multimodal software visualizations, striving at concretizing the abstract building blocks in programming languages, were exploratory investigated. The aim was to expand the understanding of how digital learning resources can be used to support students’ understanding of basic programming concepts and dynamics. Empirical studies were conducted at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University, Sweden. The data were collected during introductory programming courses in which the author had an active role as designer of the software visualizations, teacher and researcher. In these courses, the digital learning resources were explored as additional course resources. The research was conducted both through field experiments and case studies and data was collected using questionnaires, interviews and group discussions. Results strengthened the claims that abstract phenomena like programming can be made visible and understandable through visualization, in particular program dynamics.  When visualizations illustrated more conceptual elements, further guidance was required, to facilitate students’ interpretation and understanding. Regarding the online learning environments, guiding to the right learning pathways was the most critical factor found from the results. When adequate instructions and feedback were lacking in the learning environments, users became cognitively overloaded and disoriented. Finally, findings in all compiled studies indicate that teacher planning and orchestration of the learning situations should be conducted with more reflection.