This research study investigated associations between online community college students' personal characteristics and experiences in online courses (n = 123). Specifically, students' personalities and cognitive styles were examined alongside the perceived quality and outcomes of collaboration. Negative correlations were found between the conscientiousness personality style and both the quality of collaboration (p = .09) and the outcome of collaboration (p = .05). This finding indicates that conscientious students who, according to the literature tend to have higher academic achievement than other students, perceive negative experiences in online collaborative environments. Conversely, a positive correlation was discovered between the extraversion personality type and the perceived outcomes of collaboration (p = .01). Thus, students with a strongly extraverted personality tend to perceive that they benefits from collaborative learning. Approximately 11% of the variance in the collaborative experience was explained by the combined personal characteristics. The reported frequency of collaboration was positively correlated with both the quality (p < .01) and the outcomes of collaboration (p < .01). While not generalizable, these results suggest that not all students perceive benefits from online collaborative learning. It may be worthwhile to teach students traits associated with the extraversion type like flexibility which is important for collaborative learning. Also, teaching students to adopt traits associated with conscientiousness that improve academic achievement like self-regulation may help improve perceptions of collaborative experiences.

[Truncated abstract] Current literature about university teaching argues that online teaching requires online social learning based on social interaction to be effective. This implies a shift in pedagogy based on engagement and collaboration, instead of trying to reproduce face-to- face teaching, in online environments. However, when a university adopts an elearning platform (or Learning Management System, LMS), most teachers tend to reproduce their traditional teaching, delivering, through the LMS, educational material. This study explored factors which influence university teachers to adopt teaching models based on online social interaction (OSI) when an e-learning platform is used to complement undergraduate classroom teaching. Online teaching model adoption was considered in the framework of technology adoption and post-adoption behavior, i.e., adoption and use by individuals after an organization has adopted an ICT-based innovation (Jasperson, Carter, & Zmud, 2005). Behaviors were investigated using a model based on Ajzen's (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). In total, 26 university teachers 15 from Australia and 11 from Italy holding undergraduate courses, were recruited. They responded to a semi-structured interview based on the TPB, built on purpose for this research. Teachers were divided into three different groups on the basis of their approach to online teaching, corresponding to three different levels of adoption of OSI. The three different online teaching models were:

This study presents the results of a usability test of reusable learning objects currently in development in the Instructional Services Department of the UNC-Chapel Hill University Library. The learning objects are Web-based learning modules that are part of a new project, Stories of the American South, and they aim to make digital primary source material more accessible by breaking it into manageable units and providing contextual information. Seven undergraduate students viewed three prototypes, each focused on a unique theme related to the history of the American South. The results suggested that the learning objects are generally usable in design and function, and participants’ responses to design and content were positive. Several changes are suggested to optimize the usability of the learning object prototypes, and further usability testing with other audiences is recommended.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of students in an implementation of &ldquo / Learning by Design&rdquo / method through a web based learning environment. The information gathered from the students enrolled in the undergraduate course / &ldquo / Foundations of Distance Education&rdquo / in 2009 Summer School and 2009-2010 Fall Semesters was evaluated. The course was given in blended form, i.e. face to face lessons and online instructional activities were performed together. In the web based part of the course, several educational modules of an open source learning management system (LMS), such as quizzes, forums, lesson pages, wiki pages, mail interface etc. were used. The students were responsible for implementing an educational course site on the LMS platform, using the course curriculum applications. Within the scope of this thesis, the perceptions of the students about course-related projects, and online and classroom activities were investigated through interviews and questionnaires. The academic development of students was also considered in the study. Additionally, several informal interviews were also done with the instructor of the course in order to investigate his perceptions about the conduct of the course. Questionnaire results have been analyzed quantitatively and face to face interview results have been analyzed qualitatively. Both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the students&rsquo / perceptions about how the course was conducted and the learning by design activities were generally positive. Especially the project work, which was assigned as a requisite of the learning by design method, was pointed out as a positive factor in students&#039 / learning of the subject matter both in the questionnaires and in the face to face interviews. Another important finding of the interview and questionnaire results was that the communication between the instructor and the students contributed positively to not only learning the course content but the quality of the projects as well. As an outcome of this study, many important factors, which lead to successful results in implementation of learning by design method in a web based environment, have been identified. These results are presented in detail in the &#039 / Discussion and Recommendations&#039 / section.

This is a report on research regarding the screen layout of Web-based training (WBT) programs, conducted with an eye toward providing evidence-based guidance for the design and development of WBT interfaces. Specifically, the study investigated the relative instructional benefits of two general types of WBT screen design, full-page and partial-page, in terms of both learner performance and learner satisfaction. The main hypotheses of the study were that the full-page design option would yield significantly better outcomes in both categories of interest.The study employed a mixed-method design, generating both quantitative and qualitative data. The main phase of the study was experimental, following a factorial design to explore the relationships between a single treatment variable (WBT screen design) in two treatment conditions (partial-page WBT design and full-page WBT design) and two dependent variables (learner performance and learner satisfaction). Both a full-page and a partial-page version of the same Web-based tutorial were created, and 129 self-selected undergraduate students who reported having little or no experience with the tutorial subject matter were randomly assigned into the two treatment groups. Performance data were collected as scores on the tutorial's 18-item, multiple choice final exam, and satisfaction data were collected via a 10-item satisfaction survey. In addition, 59 of the study participants were randomly selected to participate in post-study session interviews.The results of the study yielded no significant difference between the two treatment groups for either learner performance or learner satisfaction; thus, making it impossible to reject the null hypothesis for either of the two primary research questions. The conclusion of this study was that the presence or absence of scrolling alone is not a significant factor either in how well a person performs in a WBT program or how satisfied they are with the learning experience . However, while analysis of the post-study session interview data supported this conclusion, the fact that a large majority of the interviewees stated a preference for the full-page, non-scrolling WBT interface design suggests that some elements inherent in the full-page design might warrant further consideration and/or study.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interactional practices of Foreign language learners in an online Distance Education course. Additionally, this study sought to investigate whether a relationship exists between participant interaction and course completion and linguistic learning outcomes. The dissertation tracked the practices of 43 participants. The data of the study included log reports from the course website that gave detailed information as to what tasks each participant completed on the course website. These log reports were then coded and analyzed to provide insight to the overall number of tasks students completed, the partner with which they were interacting, the purpose of their tasks, the collaborative nature of their tasks and the media types participants preferred. The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first goal is descriptive: to gain an indepth understanding of how learners spend their time in an online course to better understand how they use online materials and opportunities for communication to learn a language. There is little known about actual student practices in DE as the majority of research conducted relies on self-assessment measures or assumptions. Many researchers believe that communication is vital for both FL learning and DE learning. However, some of the most recent studies on interaction have questioned whether more communication and interaction in DE is necessarily better, revealing that certain interactions are possibly more effective than others. To test this assumption, this study employed an inferential design to investigate the relationship of tasks in the online learning environment to course completion and learner outcomes. The results of this research found three variables were significant predictors of both course completion and linguistic outcomes: total tasks completed, total assignments completed and language tasks. Additionally, foreign language, collaborative and asynchronous tasks also correlated to course completion and individual tasks to linguistic outcomes. Further discussion of the research findings, along with a host of recommendations for further research in this field is presented for consideration. / text

This study investigated the effects of processing instruction (PI) on the acquisition of the subjunctive in adjectival clauses by 92 intermediate-level distance learners of Spanish. PI is a novel instructional technique that is based on VanPatten's principles of input processing (1993, 1996, 2002, 2004), and it has three key components: (a) an explicit explanation of grammar that is not paradigmatic, (b) information on processing strategies, and (c) structured input tasks and activities. Structured input activities were isolated and combined with computerized visual input enhancement (VIE) in an attempt to increase the salience of targeted grammatical forms for web based delivery. VIE was operationalized as word animation of subjunctive forms through flash programming language. An experiment comparing four experimental groups with traditional instruction indicates that for interpretation and production tasks, there were no significant differences between PI and traditional instruction. However, learners who received PI combined with VIE outperformed learners who received structured input activities without VIE for interpretation tasks. In addition, the present study examined the effects of PI when learners encountered targeted forms that were embedded in an authentic input passage that was received following the experimental exposure. Thus far, studies in the PI strand have only examined how learners interact with structured, or manipulated, input. The results of the present study indicate that participants who received PI in combination with VIE noticed targeted forms in subsequent authentic input with metalinguistic awareness, and they demonstrated a significantly higher level of awareness than participants who received traditional instruction or structured input activities. Further, learners who received PI, with or without VIE, were better processors of targeted forms that were embedded in subsequent authentic input than learners who received structured input activities without VIE.

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This research explored 19 higher education faculty members' perceptions of satisfaction with their online teaching work, identified elements that enhance or inhibit these higher education faculty members' online teaching satisfaction, and provided a theoretical framework, higher education faculty online teaching satisfaction a conceptual model, to understand the relationship among these elements. The study participants represented eight different university campuses, three academic disciplines, and 10 online programs. Data was collected from multiple sources including an online background questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and public documents. Data was analyzed using the procedures for developing constructivist grounded theory proposed by Charmaz (2006). The researcher posits that the individual context component in this conceptual model affects, and is affected by the work context component as follows, online teaching work-related experiences are subjectively interpreted by individuals and groups of individuals, i.e., work-related perceptions, which affect, and are affected by individual(s) socially constructed and subjective interpretations of their online teaching work, i.e., individual(s) interpretations of work circumstances. The work-related perceptions and individual interpretations of the online teaching work circumstances reciprocally interact with each other, affecting and being affected by the first two components, individual context and work context, which also reciprocally interact and affect, and are affected by the faculty member(s) affective and cognitive evaluations of their online teaching work. These affective and cognitive evaluations result in a continuum of online teaching satisfaction. The resulting continuum of online teaching satisfaction can reciprocally affect, and be affected by any or all of the previously mentioned components of the conceptual model of this research.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2010. / The lack of ubiquitous social presence of instructors, tutors and knowledgeable experts was seen as a research problem, where the above are not always available for consultation should a learner face a learning challenge. With the existence of Web 2.0, there are opportunities to cushion those challenges faced by learners, by incorporating a personal learning environment. The activity and social presence theories were used as lenses, to understand learner interactions (whose outcome is personalized learning) provided by varied Web 2.0 tools. The research argument was, therefore, that Web 2.0 could help learners achieve personalized learning support, in varied learning contexts. The evidence shows that different applications available in a Web 2.0 environment creates a personalized learning environment for learners to interact, share knowledge and collaborate, with those who are not in the same location.