Current statistics suggest women form the majority of online learners. Their enrollment levels may be a result of promotional materials suggesting online learning allows learners access to flexible learning opportunities that will complement their busy lives. This research questions those assertions by examining the tensions women experience while learning online. Using a poststructural feminist approach, tensions are defined as the messy spaces where complexities, contradictions and competing ideas, actions, expectations, values and emotions interact to produce opposition and opportunities. Research questions asks: How do women learning online mediate tensions in the learning environment and in their own personal context? What tensions do women face when learning online? What strategies do they use to address these tensions? Are they able to find ways to balance or overcome these tensions? A poststructural feminist theoretical framework acknowledges the diversity of womens experiences and allows space for questioning discourse around lifelong learning, online learning, womens responsibilities, and institutional authority. Data was collected using multiple methods: photo-elicitation interviews and an online focus group plus a demographic survey and autoethnography. Twelve women, who all completed at least two online courses, participated representing learners of different ages, marital and family situations, geographical locations, and level and field of study. Six women took photographs, which formed the basis of face-to-face interviews. Six other women participated in an asynchronous online focus group. Themes from the results showed the tensions they experience, namely, the blurring between the boundaries between home and school, the cost of flexibility, and three strategies they used for mediating tensions (multitasking, procrastinating and persevering). While the women acknowledged the benefits of online learning and demonstrated that they were successful students, their narratives make it clear that they faced challenges in attending to and completing their schoolwork to the standards they desired, while meeting family and work responsibilities. A theoretical analysis explores how the poststructural feminist concepts of positionality and subjectivity are useful in examining womens experiences learning online and where there are gaps in applying this theoretical framework in online learning contexts. Participants narratives and photographs and the researchers own autobiographical narrative are included. / Adult Education

Fantasy sport participation is an online activity consuming the time, energy, and devotion of many sport followers. This activity provides participants a unique way to experience sport aside from simply viewing, listening, or following a sporting contest. Fantasy sport users present marketers and advertisers with a distinct type of sport fan, segmentation strategy, and target market. These users experience sport beyond wins, losses, and championships. They view statistics as fantasy points, individual players as products, and injury reports as team-altering news. These users see sport through a different lens. The purpose of this research is to gain familiarity with the fantasy sport user by developing an understanding of the motivations behind fantasy sport participation and examining factors associated with participation in fantasy sport; specifically involving media use, message board use, sport participation, overall satisfaction, and future intentions. Data was collected through the use of mixed methods consisting of qualitative online focus groups and quantitative questionnaires. The findings of the focus groups revealed four major themes associated with the participation and experience of fantasy sport. The themes were Competition, Socializing, Surveillance, and Ownership. These findings assisted in (1) validating past and current research, (2) developing and altering scale items for the quantitative questionnaire, and (3) providing deeper understanding of the fantasy sport experience. The major results of the quantitative questionnaire indicated top fantasy sport motivating factors as Fanship, Competition, and Social Sport with the lowest factors as Fan Expression, Ownership, and Escape. The factors with the highest significant relationship with overall satisfaction in the activity were Competition, Achievement, and Surveillance. The factors with the highest significant relationship with future intentions were Competition and Camaraderie. Other findings revealed no significant difference in motivations between different levels of sport participation and message board use. Message board use did, however, produce significant differences favoring higher overall satisfaction and future intentions for those using message boards. Other results examine (1) media use and fantasy sport participation and (2) Mavenism and Schwabism and its relationship to fantasy sport motivations, overall satisfaction, and future intentions.

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