Article Summary

     The Perception on Fundamentals of Online Courses: A Case on Prospective Instructional Designers is an article on the study of how student in grade freshman through seniors in college assess the importance of fifteen online course elements. This study was later decided to compare not only the age but also how gender affected these results. The study looked at 133 students in Turkey. This study was introduced because there is a trend that online learning is becoming more popular among this age group. This study was to help show what students value about online courses. Studying these statistics will help Instructional Designers to better design courses which will in turn help them be more effective. The research started by looking at other studies and conclusions that have been found in the field. One study found that learners needed the following four aspects to be better in order for online classes to be most effective. The following four were identified as the key principles: “consistent layout and design; clear organization and presentation of information; consistent and easy-to-use navigation; and aesthetically pleasing design and graphics.” Another study found that having feedback provided by the professor was most essential and that the design affected learning outcomes. Another study found that teachers wanted to be part of the design and developing process. But in order to do this teachers needed to realize the difference between online and face to face students as well as understand the tools needed to address the needs of these students.

     This study was conducted at a private university in the “Computer Education and Instructional Technology” college. These students were purposely selected because they would “have knowledge about designing, developing and implementation of the tools utilized on offering online courses.”  This study found that the participants wanted “online pages to load easily so that the whenever and wherever access feature should always be available.” Other important aspects were that “students should be able to easily communicate with instructors” and “the entire course should be fully functional.” The fourth aspect that students really wanted was that “the ‘help’ option should be presented during the entire online session.”  The general finding was that students that were in high grades had “sensitivity and knowledge regarding the importance of certain elements for online courses were significantly stimulated.” In other words, certain aspects of learning were more important to the older the students and these aspects showed to have great impact on their learning.

     In conclusion, the study found that students wanted to receive more instructor feedback. It is important to find tools that allow an instructor the ability to do this effectively. However the study showed that learners put less value on synchronous chat tools and actually preferred discussions. Students pay attention to whether pages load easily and whether the system functions properly. Although students in this study understood that it is not possible for instructors to be available online all the time, they still felt it was pertinent for instructors to be knowledgeable about different tools available as well as the content knowledge.  As for gender, this study found that females preferred the audio discussions over males. Females were also more involved with the wanting to see the help option, as well as making the course look more attractive and logically locating the material. There were also some conflicting statistics that were shown with this study. For example, “the participants strongly agree that the students should easily communicate with the instructor online whereas the chat tool or video conferencing had lower mean scores that other course element.”  Another conflict was that the mean score for customizable resources was low but then students rated that material should be presented in a way to allow different learning types to learn as a high priority.

Article Evaulation

     My evaluation of this study is that the set up was done really well. There are charts to show all the criteria that were found as well as laying out the statistics. It is broken into five tables with each table showing a different aspect of the study. The first one focused on the demographics of the students that were surveyed. The second table laid out the results for the online elements. The third table lays out the design items. The fourth table is the independent t test. And the final table is the ANOVA test on the different levels of study. The research looks consistent and complete. In other words, it does not seem that they have purposely left out information. The study also looks at other studies to confirm what the basis or purpose of this study.

The only confusing part was bringing in the gender aspect. It seems that this study was not initially thought to look at the gender roles, but then they were added in as an afterthought since the data was interesting. The study found that females do better with online learning and that different criteria were more important to females. But the study also found that female mean scores were just higher in general. Other than having another aspect to compare, I do not see the importance of gender.

     The only aspect that makes me question the results is the students that they used for this study. These students want to be instructional designers or on the technical side of online learning. The article explains that they wanted these students because they would have an understanding of the process, but I feel as though the results are skewed in one direction now. I am not sure if it would be as easy to survey general education students or students with different backgrounds, but it seems the results would be more inclusive.

     This study is significant in education because it really looks at different aspects of the course and allows real student the option to give feedback on what is important. After going through a Quality Matter rubric training course, I have learned that the whole point for the rubric is to think from the student perspective. Although the process is time consuming and can be a little tedious, the end results are teaching students. My job as an instructional designer is to pay attention to these fifteen things and make sure that the student can utilize them. The course needs to be taught, but the functionality of the course needs to be there too.

Citation

Genc, Z., & Tinmaz, H. (2016). The Perception on Fundamentals of Online Courses: A Case on Prospective Instructional Designers. European Journal of Contemporary Education, 15(1), 163-172. doi:10.13187/ejced.2016.15.163