Education Commons^™

Faculty Job Satisfaction Related To Online Course Design, April Marie Hixson

School of Education Doctoral Projects - Higher Education

Online education has expanded and evolved slowly through the decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 put online education at the forefront of teaching and learning worldwide and sped up the design and delivery of online courses. This study sought to examine faculty attitudes and opinions (amid a global pandemic) toward online course design that may affect their job satisfaction levels. Specifically, it explored factors that could inhibit or contribute to faculty job satisfaction during their engagement in online instructional design. Further, the study was designed to gain an understanding of how pedagogical and technological changes influence the degree of …

Soft Skills In Mississippi Community Colleges' Online Career And Technical Programs, Joanna Sue Alston

Dissertations

Soft skills are an essential piece in the employment puzzle, and most students’ behavioral characteristics require development, if not complete transformation, before learning can subsequently be transferred to the workplace. To that end, this facet of occupational education in community colleges’ online courses was in need of exploration to determine whether instructors were having success in implementing instructional and assessment methods for both teaching and grading students’ soft skills behaviors. This mixed methods study narrowed the focus of an extremely broad topic to four skills, specifically communication, critical thinking, teamwork, and work ethic. A look at how those skills related …

Using Online Education To Transition Teaching Assistants To Teacher Certification: Examining The Differences Among Teacher Education Programs, Billie Jean Tingle

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare The University of Southern Mississippi elementary education teacher candidates that completed the online or traditional route to determine if there was a significant difference in professional knowledge and skills using Praxis II test scores. The participants included 60 Teacher Assistant Program (TAP) online teacher candidates and 564 traditional face-to-face teacher candidates. This study also compared the two groups’ perceptions of self-efficacy. The instrument used in this part of the research study was the Teacher Education Preparation Program Exit Survey (Appendix A). A selection of the participants that completed their teacher internship during …

Social Networking Systems As A Vehicle To Promote Sense Of Community And Performance In Online Classes, Jonathan Mark Woodward

Dissertations

Academicians are navigating through the intersection of information technology and social change. The path that educators choose will help determine the future of higher education in traditional and online settings. The journey of teachers is clouded by the abundance and rapid creation of emerging technologies, but the trends of Net Generation students offer direction. Among Web 2.0 applications, social networking systems (SNSs) offer students a new approach to communicating, learning, and collaborating.

The sociocentric view of knowledge and learning and the theories of Vygotsky and Dewey are helping to drive educators to look for a solution to a missing link …

The Relative Value Of Online Learning Environments As Perceived By High School Teachers, Daryl Joe Scoggin

Dissertations

Online learning environments have become more popular for use in education from year to year. This medium for teaching and learning has been successfully used in higher education for years. Only within the past decade has this instructional platform made its way into the P-12 arena. With the expansion of online learning environments becoming more popular, this type of lesson delivery may eventually make its way to the building or site level. As in a face-to-face classroom, teachers have an effect on the success of the students. The perceptions of teachers regarding dimensions of implementation and use of online learning …

Student Perceptions Of An Effective Learning Environment Across The Dimensions Of Synchronous, Asynchronous, And Face-To-Face Instruction, Jarrett Landor-Ngemi

Dissertations

Prior to the implementation of computer technology in the classroom, the traditional classroom dynamic consisted of a chalkboard, a lectern, a teacher handout, and the occasional group assignments. However, as technology continues to evolve, so has the restructuring of the educational system (Woods & Baker, 2004). This evolution, which began as correspondence courses by mail, has resulted in a Web-based learning community characterized by its rich learner-centered environment where both student and instructor collaborate and engage in constructivist practices (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004).

This study sought to expand the existing body of knowledge on distance learning and employed quantitative techniques …

Factors Associated With Attitudes Toward Learning In An Online Environment: Transactional Distance, Technical Efficacy, And Physical Surroundings, Jodi Elizabeth Pettazzoni

Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between a student's environment in an online course and their academic achievement. This study surveyed students who completed world literature classes in an online format that were part of their universities' general education curricula. Students responded to items assessing several constructs and personal demographic variables that together defined their learning environments: content, delivery, assessment and feedback, technical support, learner experience with technology, learner experience with distance learning, interaction, physical space, support network, characteristics of adult learners, and major. Academic achievement was the dependent variable and was defined as anticipated grade in the course. Using Spearman …