A common form of training or education evaluation involves the examination of course participant reactions towards various aspects of the course for summative evaluation purposes. Participant reactions have been examined within the framework of a comparison between online and face to face courses often with a slight positive weight towards online courses (Sitzmann et al., 2006). Past research on this topic has denoted a need for studies examining the relationship between objective course characteristics and participant reactions. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between participant reactions of a sample of geographically disbursed teachers enrolled in a large, national professional development company and objective course characteristics as communicated by course syllabi within a framework of comparison between online and face to face courses. The delivery format, knowledge base, specificity of course objectives, and student interaction levels were all related to some degree to various participant reactions, although the effect sizes were notably small. In many cases, an interaction between the delivery format and objective course characteristic in question influenced the participant reaction. Objective course characteristics as communicated by the syllabi appeared to be major predictors of participant reactions within the face to face courses that were examined, but not for the online courses. Course development stakeholders are recommended to pay attention to the course syllabus design process and craft quality syllabi that communicate relevant information while concurrently anticipating potential participant reactions. Organizations may be able to align the outline for instruction or “contract” as presented by the syllabus with recommendations as offered by participant evaluations so as to instill consistent expectations within the participants and maximize positive reactions towards the courses within which they are enrolled
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-2736 |
| Date | 01 January 2011 |
| Creators | Glerum, David Richard |
| 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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