The COVID-19 pandemic, known as the coronavirus, was declared as a national pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020 (Cucinotta and Vanelli, 2020). Following the declaration of a national pandemic, institutions across society were forced to respond. Among those most immediately impacted, were colleges and universities. Higher education faculty and administrators transitioned in-person courses to an online format to adjust to the restrictions of coronavirus. As a result, college students around the world experienced a sudden shift to taking an entire semester of courses in an unfamiliar online format. The pandemic served as a catalyst to a trend over the last 2 years to provide access to a growing number of online courses. Given this drastic change and the unprecedented future of higher education during uncertain times, it was imperative to further study the nature of quality in online courses. While research on quality in higher education is extensive, a significant gap in literature exists related to students' perspectives of quality, particularly in online courses. To address this gap, I used the Community of Inquiry framework (CoI) (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000) and related survey to explore aspects that contribute to perceptions of online education quality. The study investigated how undergraduate students at a large public research institution perceived the importance of elements of the CoI Framework. The data analyses included independent sample t tests, one-way ANOVAs, and regression. The results revealed that course pedagogy does affect students' perceptions of online quality. However, student characteristics do not affect students' perceptions of quality for online courses in Higher Education. / Doctor of Philosophy / It is important to understand quality in higher education because of its economic and social value. Gaining a deeper understanding into how students perceive quality is crucial, since they are the main consumer group of higher education. As a result of COVID-19, which was declared a national pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020 (Cucinotta and Vanelli, 2020), all higher education institutions were forced to transition courses to an online format. Due to the prevalence of online courses, quality of online courses became a primary focus for educational leaders. This study sought to better understand how students who are members of a single academic college at a large public university perceive the quality of online courses. The 145 participants in this study completed the online Community of Inquiry survey, which had an estimated 10–15-minute completion time. The survey contained 34 Likert scale questions related to students' experiences in an online course they have taken within the past academic year. This quantitative study utilized the Community of Inquiry framework which creates a deep and meaningful quality learning experience in online courses. (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000). The results of this study revealed that course pedagogy does affect students' perceptions of online quality. This study also found that student characteristics do not affect students' perceptions of quality for online courses in higher education.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115223 |
| Date | 26 May 2023 |
| Creators | Eldredge, Jade Marie |
| Contributors | Educational Research and Evaluation, Kniola, David John, Miyazaki, Yasuo, Robbins, Claire K., Skaggs, Gary E. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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