Lack of student persistence and retention is significantly hurting the US in producing the required number of qualified graduates, especially in STEM fields. Although many factors contribute to students falling off track, one of the controllable factors is the identification of at-risk students followed by early intervention. Predicting the…

"In some ways, shouldn't we always be teaching from a distance?" Paul France asks this not as pitch for distance learning. But because part of the reason distance learning has been so challenging, Paul asserts, is that we're replicating long-standing practices that promote "dependent learning" in our students. Why not use this…

This article provides evidence of critical factors of student retention in Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs). The study used multiple sources: tracked retention data (n=43,000), survey data in correlation with tracking data (n=400), and qualitative data (174 informants) from a survey (Friðriksdóttir, 2018, 2021a, 2021b). The data came…

The impacts of COVID-19 have been widespread, and the education sector has not been immune to its effects. In March 2020 Australian universities were forced into a shutdown, which prompted an unanticipated, sudden shift in education, from on-campus and face-to-face to an off-campus and online mode of teaching and learning. This paper describes the…

This study based on a cross-sectional survey approach, examined E-learning interactivity which was hypothesised to be a multidimensional construct, and its association with learner satisfaction continuing learning intentions. The Transactional Distance theory by Moore (1989) and the three-way model for computer-initiated interaction by Evans &…

Instruction plays a critical role in student success. However, most studies of teachers' effects on student learning focus on face-to-face settings. Some aspects of online courses, such as the choice of synchronous or asynchronous instruction and the course structure, might reduce teachers' influence on their students. This study of an online high…

These are the appendixes for the report, "Exploring Teachers' Influence on Student Success in an Online Biology Course." This study of an online high school biology course offered by Florida Virtual School examined the variation in students' course segment (similar to semester) completion rates, end-of-segment exam scores, and time to…

Instruction plays a critical role in student success. However, most studies of teachers' effects on student learning focus on face-to-face settings. Some aspects of online courses, such as the choice of synchronous or asynchronous instruction and the course structure, might reduce teachers' influence on their students. For example, online courses…

Adaptive Learning, as a new online learning environment, intends to individualize the learning experience for each individual learner. Adaptive Learning suffers many shortcomings, as the date of the publication of this dissertation, however, it is considered the next generation of the learning environment for at least the next twenty years;…

The rapid and impressive development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in less than half a decade has generated contrasting arguments about their social dimension. This paper investigates how the socio-economic background of learners affects their own experience and chances of course completion. The analyses test whether learners with a low…

This study investigated the effects of interactional, motivational, self-regulatory, and situational factors on university students' online learning outcomes and continuation intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from 255 students taking a business course at a university in southern China. Hierarchical multiple regression…

Along with the burgeoning expansion of online platforms for student learning in higher education have come complementary analytics tools to rate student engagement, learning, success and progression. As, in the UK, institutions embrace these tools as part of government-led attainment targets and awards (e.g. Teaching Excellence Framework), the…

This paper compares the perceptions of two groups of students who participated in the first cohort of the WebIT online Master of Science Degree in Instructional Technology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville over a two-year period. The program completers (n=11) are the students who completed and graduated from the WebIT program. The…

In 1975, Weinberg (2001) first posed the challenging question that we, as educators, are unfortunately still struggling to answer: Why are we so unable to anticipate the second order effects of the first order victories of science and technology? Forty years later, education is still struggling to identify and address the second order effects of…

Instructional Scaffolding is a learning process designed to promote a deeper level of learning and asynchronous learning involves learning via e-mails, blogs etc. The study was conducted in the urban area of Assam, India aimed to find out the effects of Online Technology Based Scaffolding (OTBS)on the asynchronous learning performance in relations…