Online education has emerged as an effective and increasingly common alternative to face-to-face instruction in postsecondary education. This article is a summary of effective practices in online instructional methods, including course design, interaction among course participants, and instructor preparation and support.

Recent studies of online learning environments reveal the importance of interaction within the virtual environment. Abrami, Bernard, Bures, Borokhovski, and Tamim (2011) identify and study 3 types of student interactions: student-content, student-teacher, and student-student. This article builds on this classification of interactions as it…

Interaction is a critical component of distance education and involves the transfer of information between the learner and content, learner and learner, or learner and instructor (Moore, 1989). Current distance education literature has examined the role of interaction, specifically learner-learner interaction, in learning and discussion design to…

This study investigated the differences between Arab and American distance learners' preference in the 2 components of transactional distance (structure and interaction) and their relation to learners' self-efficacy and help seeking. The study sample consisted of 95 cases from each group (N = 190). Study results indicated significant differences…

E-learning has been a hot topic for academics, technical researches, and practices because there is a need to employ advancements in technologies to support the education process and help academics and universities. E-learning, together with classical learning, can further enhance the learning process through the benefits of the new technologies.…

Within the online environment, social interactivity is a necessity to the formation of knowledge. Learning, in order to be truly effective, must embody a social element that nurtures an individual through the multi-intelligences of a group while it also embraces and fosters an individual to recognize self-efficacy. The idea of successful learning…

This study examined whether the jigsaw model might be used in an online higher education course to produce the key characteristics of successful cooperative learning: interdependence, individual accountability, development of social skills, and promotive interaction. The authors employed a qualitative case study design to examine a 6-week online…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether "equivalent learning experiences" ensure equivalency, in the Internet-based and face-to-face interaction methods on learning results and student satisfaction. In the experimental process of this study, the effect of the Internet-based and face-to-face learning on the equivalency in learning…

This mixed-method study investigates distance education students' desire to interact and the support for community building available to them at a department-wide level in a graduate-level instructional systems technology program. Distance education students' interactions are compared to those of the department's residential students. A modified…

The current study involves a comparison of student levels of engagement, ability to learn autonomously, and interaction with peers and faculty in two different learning settings: a large lecture hall and online. Results suggest that learning mechanism drives the styles of learning and teaching practiced in traditional and online learning settings.…

With the advance in information and communication technologies, computer-mediated communication--more specifically computer conferencing systems (CCS)--has captured the interest of educators as an ideal tool to create a learning environment featuring active, participative, and reflective learning. Educators are increasingly adapting the features…

This study evaluated students' sense of community, satisfaction, achievement, and retention in 3 sections of the same online undergraduate psychology course. Use of asynchronous discussion threads and students' perceived interaction with fellow students and the instructor were all correlated with students' perceived sense of community (SOC). When…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis of the Computer-Mediated Communication Questionnaire scores, using structural equation modeling, to assess the consistency between the empirical data and the hypothesized factor structure of the CMCQ in the proposed models, which is stipulated by the theoretical framework and…

The authors conducted a comparative analysis to examine learners' interaction in the Web-based learning environment of 2 distance education institutions. The interaction was critically analyzed based on social, procedural, expository, explanatory, and cognitive dimensions, across 7 categories of exchanges between course coordinator to groups,…

Online courses continue to gain popularity at colleges and universities, with a primary tool for demonstrating critical thinking and interaction being the discussion forum. Instructors and students of online courses are faced with the dilemma of sifting through potentially hundreds of postings when all students are placed within a forum. The…