The purpose of this study was to examine engagement in academic dishonesty in traditional and online college courses and the perceptions of online students toward academic dishonesty. Students enrolled in the Tennessee Regents Online Degree Program (RODP) who had taken both online and traditional courses were invited to participate in the study. The study included 635 valid surveys submitted electronically for a 15% response rate. The electronic survey was designed based on previous research studies. The survey collected data concerning rates of student engagement for academic dishonesty behaviors in traditional courses and in online courses, student perceptions of deterrence of academic dishonesty, student perceptions of the seriousness of academic dishonesty, and demographic data. Survey results were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tests. Analysis of variance tests were conducted for the research questions that addressed differences in the rates of academic dishonesty in online courses and traditional courses based on the demographic factors of age, gender, academic standing (GPA), classification, and field of study. Chi-square procedures were conducted to determine differences in academic dishonesty in four types of cheating. Linear regression was conducted to determine relationships between demographic factors and rates of academic dishonesty. Findings indicate that students reported significantly higher overall rates of academic dishonesty in traditional courses than in online courses. Significant differences were not found in the rates in traditional courses based on age, gender, academic classification, or intended field of study; however, rates were higher for respondents with lower grade point averages. Students reported more frequent engagement in cheating on tests than cheating on written assignments, cheating on out-of-class assignments, or using technology to cheat. Regression tests found a weak relationship between intended field of study and rates of academic dishonesty. A personal code of integrity was perceived to be the most effective deterrent, and cheating was considered only a moderate problem in higher education. Information from this study can benefit online students, instructors, and college administrators who deal with issues related to academic dishonesty and online learning. As online learning increases, further research on academic dishonesty is recommended.

This case study focused on students who had matriculated in online courses in the Business Management Program. The setting for the study was a Virginia community college. The purpose of this study was to examine the social, faculty and administrative, and technology influences on students' perceptions of online learning. Students' conveyed experiences and perceptions of the tools and practices faculty used to implement online learning were coded and categorized to generate grounded theory that may be used to govern distance learning implementation. Data were collected through document reviews, semi-structured interviews, and field studies. The interview participants were selected from the 2008 graduates of the Business Management Program. Data from personal memos and field studies were collected through students' comments on individual courses. Interview data included descriptions of all the distance learning courses in which the interviewees had participated. The constant comparative method was used to analyze and code the data into themes that emerged and were applied to establish grounded theories that may prove to be useful in governing the tools and practices of distance learning in higher education. The findings of the study indicated that as the number of online courses that a student successfully completed increased, so did the student's preference of distance learning over the traditional classroom environment. The study also revealed that students were reluctant to participate in distance learning if their first experiences in this method of delivery had been negative; therefore, administrators should be more supportive and evaluative in selecting online faculty. Findings also indicated that even though students enjoyed the time and place flexibility and convenience of distance learning, they still expected instructors to create and implement an environment that cultivated students' social and academic success within the educational environment.

In recent years thousands of people worldwide have been using Massive open on- line courses (MOOCs) for various reasons, including career development and change, continuing education, lifelong learning, and training. MOOCs are free online courses that anyone can enroll in and are an affordable and flexible way to learn new skills, develop professionally, and provide quality educational experience across the globe. Having an exemplary user interface will make users prefer most MOOC platforms, which inspired this study to know which MOOC platform has usability and better user experience by using the survey evaluation. The main objective of this study is to measure the usability components(effectiveness, efficiency, and overall user satisfaction level) to determine which MOOC platform, Coursera or Udemy, has a better user experience using the heuristic principles. A quantitative research method has been used in this paper, which focuses on sta- tistical, mathematical, and numerical analysis of data collected through surveys, questionnaires, and polls. In this paper, a questionnaire to determine user satis- faction through surveys has been developed. Usability has been evaluated for each MOOC platform (Coursera and Udemy) by calculating usability components. Sta- tistical methods like variance and standard deviations has been calculated using the survey results. Responses from the survey evaluation are collected and are graphically represented in bar graphs and pie charts. Respondent’s timings and statistical method results are presented in a tabular form. The satisfaction level is calculated and represented in a Likert scale format. The usability of two MOOC platforms (Coursera and Udemy) was measured by cal- culating usability components. Better user experience among Coursera and Udemy is measured using usability heuristic principles. This study concludes that effec- tiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction level while performing eight tasks given to the user is similar in both MOOC platforms (Coursera and Udemy). From the survey evaluation, the users preferred Udemy over Coursera.

Parental support roles in K-12 online learning differ from traditional schools. Since K-12 students typically have not developed the self-regulation skills necessary for academic engagement, parents partner with schools to provide the affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement support necessary for academic success. Through 21 semistructured interviews with parents supporting K-12 students in varied online contexts, this study delineates how parents provided support in each of these dimensions of engagement. The participants felt that in online education, parents should take the primary responsibility for behavioral engagement support, and that teachers were primarily responsible for cognitive support. Parents believed they shared affective engagement responsibilities with teachers, but that teachers should make content more interesting and engaging while parents provided for the emotional needs of their student. The findings also describe additional parental support roles, including helping students move to an online school, increasing personal availability, leveraging resources, teaching themselves, and encouraging students to develop independent engagement skills. The themes reveal how parents strengthen both themselves and other community actors to ensure their students receive sufficient engagement support. Given the importance of parental support in K-12 online education and the inequity of parental support across online learners, online schools should consider how to provide targeted help to parents in their support roles, including assuming a dual-support role for both students and parents.

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Recently, distance education has become popular and has gotten much attention. Information and Communication Technology advances fostered distance learning creation and enabled individuals to participate in the education process via various web-based platforms and study entirely online. Thus, the notion of e-learning and distance learning emerged. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appeared as part of e-learning in 2008 and attracted great interest, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was anticipated that this kind of study also could be integrated into higher education and revolutionize the learning approach. However, several issues related to MOOCs limit their full potential. One of the most significant problems is substantial rate of learners’ attrition. It was discovered that only 5-10 percent of MOOC learners complete a course. This thesis aims to examine what influences individuals’ decision to leave MOOCs and how learners perceive various course components to get ideas regarding how MOOCs could be enhanced. To do this, the mixed-method study was undertaken where quantitative data analysis of learners’ reviews from discussion forums and qualitative interviews were adopted. It allowed to get two perspectives and broaden the thesis out- come. For the current research, data was collected from six courses in three different subjects-«Health», «Art and Humanity/Design» and «Computer/Data Science». In the first part of the work, sentiment analysis and topic modeling using Python packages were carried out, and then the results were used to construct an interview questionnaire. Lexicon-based sentiment analysis technique and LDA topic modeling algorithm were utilized and proved to be robust methods to extract texts’ polarity and peoples’ opinions. In the qualitative part, 19 topics of discussion were identified, which were consolidated into eight topics with higher abstraction – materials, instructor, content, time, assignment, feedback, program(course), and algorithms. Then during the qualitative part, participants expressed their opinions regarding these topics, and analysis codes were predefined, and new topics did not emerge. The results showed learners’ perceptions related to presented topics and how these aspects influence experience with MOOCs. The outcome also showed a slight disparity between different subject learners, in both qualitative and quantitative studies identified topics of discussion were not exactly the same, showing that learners from different educational domains tend to discuss different themes.

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Coincidental increases in online instruction at institutions of higher education and in online social networking generally in the U.S. have created opportunities for research into how digital interpersonal connectivity affects online learning. This study examined interactive webcasts, or webcasts plus chat, that were part of an online undergraduate course covering Internet knowledge and skills at a large public university. Symbolic interactionism served as the theoretical framework for explicating interactive webcasts as useful online learning environments by exploring the complex processes that instructional staff employed to manage their actions and interactions as moderators in the webcasts and chats. A constructivist grounded theory approach guided the collection and analysis of empirical data in the form of webcast media and transcripts, chat logs, students‘ reflective writing, and semi-structured, intensive interviews with instructional staff. From the study emerged theoretical categories in three tiers related to a generalized moderator process called minding the verge: moderators minded the verge in three conditions of interaction– converging, attending, and diverging; in three loci of interaction – webcasts, chats, and webcasts+chat; and through six actions of moderating – bonding, orientating, guiding, tending, validating, and branching. The results of this study provide moderators for the course with insights into their actions in the interactive webcasts and with concepts moderators can use to explore how to manage interactive webcasts more effectively. Beyond effecting substantive changes to interactive webcasts for the course, the study may guide others who wish to pursue further studies of webcasts+chat as they occur in the course or elsewhere, or of other mixed-media environments, or who wish to adopt mixed-media environments for instruction. Other potential areas for research that emerged from this study include the affective states of participants in the webcasts+chat and the use of affective devices, such as emoticons and abbreviations, for showing affective states; the effect that format has on the efficacy of webcasts+chat used for computer-mediated instruction; and the processes students employ to manage actions and interactions in the webcasts and chats. / text

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:23:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tatiana Higa Pasini.pdf: 1322672 bytes, checksum: cf604ff144bfca526f662102e18625ca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-07 / Set in the context of the distance education, this research investigated the process of combining elements of design of an online course components. The analyzed course was Teachers Links: Reflexão e Desenvolvimento para professores de inglês, a course for English teachers. This course has gone through a process of redesigning and a new component was included, the Reflection component, considering the reflective teacher practices. Since then, considering this new component, questions have arisen about the content being established, the component development, the team responsible for its development and also about the existence of an articulation between the new component and the component which already existed, the Development component. From these concerns, this study has chosen to discuss the process of articulating the design elements in the tow components, as the component Reflection was planned after the Development component and the Reflection had to adapt to it so that the final design outcome was consistent and harmonious. The elements of design investigated in both components were: a) the language used in the pages of the course; due to the fact the language materializes the relations between the teacher and the student and the relations between the designer and the student, b) the mediation strategies and c) the design itself, the components planning. These elements were analyzed in the units of each component; each unit is made up by 5 activities. In order to substantiate the analysis, the theoretical concepts in this study are the Systemic-Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985), the mediation concept proposed by Vygotsky (1929/1998a, 1934/1998b) and the concepts of design proposed by Reigeluth (1999), Nielsen (2000), Collins (2003) and by Filatro (2004). As a result of this research, it was noted that the Development and the Reflection components have the design elements really well articulated, coherent and harmonious, fruit of a team work that shares the same ideal for the online courses / Inserida no contexto de ensino a distância, esta pesquisa investigou o processo de articulação de elementos de design dos componentes de um curso on-line. O curso analisado foi o Teachers Links: Reflexão e Desenvolvimento para professores de inglês, curso de aperfeiçoamento para professores de inglês. Esse curso passou por um processo de reformulação e incluiu um novo componente, o componente Reflexão, voltado às práticas reflexivas do professor. Desde então, no âmbito desse novo componente, surgiram indagações a respeito do conteúdo a ser estabelecido, dos procedimentos de desenvolvimento, da equipe que se responsabilizaria pelo Reflexão e a respeito da existência de uma integração entre o novo componente e o componente já existente no curso, o componente Desenvolvimento. Partindo dessas inquietações, este estudo optou por discutir o processo de articulação dos elementos de design entre os dois componentes, pois o componente Reflexão foi planejado posteriormente ao componente Desenvolvimento e teve que a ele se adaptar , de modo que o resultado final do design fosse coerente e harmonioso. Os elementos do design investigados em ambos os componentes foram: a) a linguagem utilizada nas páginas do curso, uma vez que ela materializa as relações existentes entre o professor e o aluno e entre o designer e o aluno, b) as estratégias de mediação e c) o próprio design, o desenho e o planejamento dos componentes. Esses elementos foram analisados nas atividades das unidades de cada componente, totalizando 15 atividades, sendo 5 em cada unidade, expressas nas páginas do curso. Com o intuito de fundamentar a análise, as concepções teóricas presentes neste estudo são a Lingüística Sistêmico-Funcional (Halliday,1985), a concepção de mediação proposta por Vygotsky (1929/1998a, 1934/1998b) e seus seguidores e as concepções de design propostas por Reigeluth (1999), Nielsen (2000), Collins (2003) e por Filatro (2004). Como resultado da pesquisa, constatou-se que os componentes Desenvolvimento e Reflexão apresentam os elementos de design muito bem articulados, coerentes e harmoniosos, frutos de um trabalho em equipes que compartilham o mesmo ideal para cursos on-line