Responsive survey design is a technique aimed at improving the efficiency or quality of surveys by using incoming data from the field to make design changes. The technique was pioneered on large national surveys, but the tools can also be applied on the smaller-scale surveys most commonly used by sociologists. We demonstrate responsive survey…

This study aimed to verify the applicability of the community of inquiry (CoI) survey instrument in MOOC involving 1,186 college students from 11 different disciplines in China. Exploratory factor analysis was used to explore potential factor structure models, and confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to verify the four-factor structure…

Library tutorials offer on demand and as-needed instruction, a necessity as higher education continues to extend the reach of online learning. Our institution has increased its online course offerings alongside a university-wide shift in pedagogical and student-centered philosophy. To align our library tutorials webpage with these advances, we…

There are few accounts in the higher education literature of mixing methods at the survey design stage and very little guidance targeting higher education researchers and practitioners who want to implement a mixed methods approach to design survey tools. This article explores an eight-step, iterative, mixed methods approach for creating a…

This collection explores a variety of perspectives on the student voice in UK higher education. Featuring reflections from a vice-chancellor, student representatives and interviews with the Office for Students' Student Panel, as well as sections considering disabled students, international students and mature students, the thirteen essays each…

This exploratory study investigated what faculty and current students in Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) programs perceive as indicators of an exemplary program. We surveyed a sample of the faculty and students and asked them to identify the most important indicators of an exemplary program and rank their own programs according to those…

This study compared student workload and perceived value of coursework assigned for a matching set of semester and term general education courses at Brigham Young University. Statistically significant differences in workloads were found between most semester and term courses. While term workloads were slightly lighter in general, both could be…

Faculty participants in a fellowship designed to engage students at an urban commuter college of technology in their general education curriculum evaluated and redesigned their courses to include place-based learning (PBL) using the Living Laboratory model of pedagogy. Focused on faculty perception of the relationship between PBL and its influence…

Within the teaching of political theory, an assumption is emerging that "Reacting to the Past" simulations are an effective tool because they encourage greater student engagement with ideas and history. While previous studies have assessed the advantages of simulations in other political science subfields or offered anecdotal evidence of…

The OnCreate project was initiated by ten universities with expertise in collaborative work in online-based learning environments and explores the specific challenges of implementing university courses in creative disciplines in such an environment. The first research phase comprises a literature search on creativity and its contextual factors in…

The case study presented in this article is an example of an implementation evaluation. The evaluation investigated significant components of the implementation of a long-term environmental educational program. Direct observation, evaluation-specific survey data, and historical data were used to determine program integrity as identified by…

Many undergraduate institutions are reforming their courses to increase student engagement. A critical challenge in these efforts is to engage the academic community beyond the instructors in the process of change. At our university, we embraced this challenge by creating a volunteer community of faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and…

Drawing by learners can be an effective way to develop memory and generate visual models for higher-order skills in biology, but students are often reluctant to adopt drawing as a study method. We designed a nonclassroom intervention that instructed introductory biology college students in a drawing method, minute sketches in folded lists (MSFL),…

The study reported here examined college students' academic self-efficacy, 'academic press' and learning achievement, as well as the association between these three variables within learning contexts using interactive whiteboard-based instruction. A quasi-experimental study was conducted using a sample (n = 103) of first-year college students in…

Several institutions have redesigned traditional learning spaces to better realize the potential of active, experiential learning. We compare student performance in traditional and active learning classrooms in a large, introductory biology course using the same syllabus, course goals, exams, and instructor. Using ACT scores as predictive, we…