The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which selected communication tools used by teachers who teach online are positively perceived by their students in improving feelings of self-efficacy and motivation, and which tools may be perceived to be significantly more effective than the others. Students from the Florida Virtual School, a leader in online course delivery for grades 6-12, were surveyed to find their perceptions about how their teachers' use of email, Instant Messaging, chat, the telephone, discussion area, whiteboard, and assignment feedback affected their motivation and success in an online high school course. Correlations were done to discover if there were any significant relationships between variables that relate to teacher interaction and motivation. In addition, distributions of student responses to survey questions about digital communication tools and demographics were examined. It was found that there is a high degree of correlation between frequency of teachers' use of digital communication tools and student's perception of their level of motivation. It was also found that the digital communication tools most frequently used by teachers in communicating with their students were email, the telephone, and assignment feedback, and that the students found these same tools the most helpful in their learning. In addition, no significant demographic differences were found in students' perception of teacher's use of tools to enhance learning and motivation in their courses except in the number of previous online courses taken. These findings can help direct online high school teachers in their selection of digital tools used to communicate with their students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-4525 |
| Date | 01 January 2008 |
| Creators | Putney, Nathan |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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