This study examines relationships among several variables within the context of online learning in higher education including self-regulated effort, maintained situational interest, gender differences, and age-related factors. Analyzing data from a diverse Open Cyber University of Korea student sample, the research highlights a positive…

The idea of social capital as the value obtainable from an individual's social relationships has been used to study many organizational and social settings, but rarely virtual environments. We used data from an online higher education institution to examine how an individual's social capital derived from her position in the social structure…

The study investigated student reaction to the alternative mechanics survey (AMS), a modified force concept inventory, which used automatically marked free-response questions and offered limited feedback to students after their answers had been submitted. Eight participants were observed in completing the AMS, and they were interviewed to gain…

Compared with fully face-to-face or online learning environments, implementation of hybrid learning spaces is costly given the spaces making all learning options available for learners. Therefore, decisions on investments in hybrid learning are critical for institutions. Satisfaction and experience of learners is one of the important indicators…

Massive Open Online Courses and e-learning represent the future of the teaching-learning processes through the development of Information and Communication Technologies. They are the response to the new education needs of society. However, this future also presents many challenges such as the processing of online forums when a huge number of…

The present study aims to empirically examine the relation between learner autonomy and specific aspects of the learning process, such as student-student interaction and tutor-student interaction, in a distance learning environment in Greece. An empirical study was conducted at the Hellenic Open University (HOU) using data gathered via a…

Distance students are time poor and some drop out of their studies because they fall behind with coursework. This raises the issue of how course teams decide upon how many study hours should be included in a course. This article presents a number of Open University projects that have addressed student workload management and relates how learning…

The Pygmalion Effect is the positive form of self-fulfilling prophecy and shows how teacher expectations influence student performance. According to this phenomenon, higher expectations can lead to an increase in performance. In this research qualitative methodology was adopted both in data collection, and in analysis, in order to investigate the…

This paper studies the transactional distance between the students and the tutor as well as the autonomy of students in a postgraduate course of the Hellenic Open University (HOU). The aim of the paper is to examine how the relation between autonomy and transactional distance evolves during an academic year and how this relation is affected by…

How do (potential) students differ in their preferences for the organization of online and distance courses and programs, can these differences be grouped into preference profiles, and are there any associations between these profiles and variables, such as achievement and dropout, that are relevant for the promotion and design of online and…

The study aspires, by giving voice to the experiences and perceptions of adult learners and their educators, as they embark on distance learning courses delivered by the Open University of Cyprus and the Hellenic Open University to unveil the adult learning and "fine-grained" processes at work during the organization and delivery of the…

In the context of the hype, promise and perils of Big Data and the currently dominant paradigm of data-driven decision-making, it is important to critically engage with the potential of Big Data for higher education. We do not question the potential of Big Data, but we do raise a number of issues, and present a number of theses to be seriously…

This article reviews key findings from six surveys of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) across the UK higher education (HE) sector, conducted by Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association in association with Jisc. Updating the findings presented by Jenkins, Browne, Walker, and Hewitt [2010. The development of technology enhanced…

This study aims at determining the level of students' satisfaction of learner support services in the study centres of NOUN--National Open University of Nigeria and whether the support services offered at the study centres have significant influence on the level of students' satisfaction. A descriptive survey of ex-post facto research design was…

In independent learning contexts, the effectiveness of the feedback dialogue between student and tutor or, in the absence of a tutor, the quality of the learning materials, is essential to successful learning. Using the voices of participants as the prime source of data through a combination of data-driven and concept-driven approaches, this…