This study investigated student views of online instruction in higher education courses. Data were collected from 199 online students using a Web-based instrument. The instrument consisted of items that were expected to be associated with effective online teaching. One overall effective teaching item was regressed onto twenty-five items in order…

The purpose of the study was to explore and develop a deeper understanding of the quality dimensions of Web-based adult education. Adult educators were asked to rate their organizations with respect to each of the quality indicator items in a forty-one-question survey instrument. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized to identify a six-factor…

The U.S. Army has been conducting a variety of management education programs for commissioned officers. In both its traditional and its new distance education programs, the Army has established a goal of improving critical thinking and reasoning skills among its students to prepare its future leaders and managers more effectively for the…

This study investigated the degree to which students cognitively engage with their online courses. Cognitive engagement was defined as the integration and utilization of students' motivations and strategies in the course of their learning. Given this, the study utilized J. B. Biggs's (1987a) Study Process Questionnaire to measure motivations and…

This case study examined interaction patterns between men and women and the effects of the patterns on gender participation in online debates. Students labeled messages to identify each message as an argument, challenge, evidence, or explanation when posting messages to the debates. The results revealed no differences in the number of male and…

Past studies of online discourse found social presence to be a critical element in the learning process. Social presence connotes the extent to which students perceive themselves as intellectually connected to the other participants in an online dialogue. Impediments to the development of social presence can disrupt knowledge formation as a group…

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of traditionally spoken linguistic analysis approaches for understanding the nature and outcomes of online interaction. The study took place with twenty-eight elementary school teachers in ten suburban Chicago schools involved in a technology-supported, problem-based learning curriculum…

This study explored barriers and facilitating factors affecting the development and use of learning objects in developing instructional materials and their use in supporting individualized learning. Over a two-month period, students in a graduate-level instructional design course developed instructional materials incorporating learning objects or…

A comprehensive meta-analysis of the research following Glass, McGraw, and Smith's (1981) technique integrated findings from twenty-five comparative studies from 1990 to 2003 targeting student achievement and distance education in allied health professions. Student achievement was assessed through course grades and resulted in an overall effect…

This research examined the impact of the length and format (video, audio or text) of instructional Web modules (segments of lectures) on information recall, persistence, perceived content difficulty, aesthetic appeal, and perceived module length. Twelve Web-based instructional modules with different formats and lengths were evaluated through an…

This article presents research based on highly structured and self-managed discussions in the university context. The main question answered by this study is about the value and effectiveness of these virtual tools for teaching and learning, in terms of the types of knowledge built and the relationship between this knowledge and the academic…

This case study analyzed how an online learning community developed among a cohort of 18 students in an instructional design and technology master's degree program taught at a distance. Students' reflections about the effectiveness of the program revealed that a community-centered approach to learning, a constructivist learning environment, and…

This study explores distance instructors' perceptions and attitudes related to applying key elements of instructional design in preparing to teach at a distance. Although one role of a distance instructor is to design instruction, it is not known if and how he or she knows, understands, and applies instructional design elements when he or she…

Despite the continued growth of Web-based courses, and the great promise of anytime, any place learning, it appears that Web-based instruction fails to produce the sense of "social connectedness" often highly valued in face-to-face instruction. The purpose of this study was to identify problems instructors face that impede social connectedness…

There has been a rapid proliferation of online courses and shareable content objects. These courses often include a vast array of information, yet they are not instructionally sound. The primary purpose of this article is to provide a procedure (tool) that will help instructional designers determine if existing e-learning courses and sharable…