Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness

The authors explore the possible relationship between student satisfaction with online learning and the theory of psychological contracts. The study incorporates latent trait models using the image analysis procedure and computation of Anderson and Rubin factors scores with contrasts for students who are satisfied, ambivalent, or dissatisfied with their online learning experiences. The findings identify three underlying satisfaction components: engaged learning, agency, and assessment. The factor score comparisons indicate that students in the general satisfaction categories characterize important differences in engaged learning and agency, but not assessment. These results lead the authors to hypothesize that predetermined, but unspecified expectations (i.e., psychological contracts) for online courses by both students and faculty members are important advance organizers for clarifying student satisfaction.

As an objective toward its mission of providing HIV-AIDS education, the Higher Education Consortium for AIDS Prevention surveyed students of Florida's State University System to determine their health risk behaviors. The instrument used, the "Health Risk Behavior Survey for University Students," was adapted for college students from one used by the Centers for Disease Control. The six behavior categories questioned were: (1) intentional and unintentional injuries; (2) tobacco use; (3) alcohol and drug use; (4) sexual behaviors; (5) dietary habits; and (6) physical activity or exercise. Approximately 2,000 surveys were mailed, of which 1,150 were completed (response rate of 57%). Of the responses, 685 were from females and 460 from males. Scales were derived for each category of risk. Results indicated that these six dimensions were indeed scalable. Such scaling permits the examination of the covariances and testing of a latent trait model that would help explain the in...

The 2008 Sloan Blended Workshop evaluation track provided participants with ideas, methods, and resources with which to design and evaluate their courses, programs, and blended initiatives. The many questions that arose from participants at the Workshop provided the motivation to document our University's evaluation experiences at course, program and institutional levels. This paper presents our lessons learned including successes and challenges, with developing and conducting a longitudinal impact evaluation.

While many MOOCs modeled on traditional university curricula may be undertaken as sources of professional development, the BlendKit Course was designed by the University of Central Florida specifically for the professional development of higher education faculty and designers preparing to design and teach blended learning courses. As a result, it has been crucial to us as designers, facilitators, and evaluators to determine the correct balance between unfettered openness and the clear (and perhaps more familiar) curricular path of traditional professional development offerings.

This evaluation of CIVITAS-Hungary's "Citizen in a Democracy" competition relied on the analysis of a survey instrument, student and teacher interviews, field notes, audio recordings, and program artifacts. The evaluation is concerned with the effects of the "Citizen in a Democracy" competition on students, schools, and families in Hungary and includes suggestions for improvement. The report contains the following sections: "

This evaluation of CIVITAS-Hungary's "Citizen in a Democracy" competition for 1999 extends the pilot study results obtained in 1998. The evaluation is concerned with the effects of the "Citizen in a Democracy" competition on students, schools, and families in Hungary.

The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) traces its roots to the Alfred P. Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) that emerged in the 1990s when a cadre of early adapters of online learning began to coalesce into a professional community. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this community embarked on a number of activities designed to promote quality in the design and implementation of online and blended learning applications. In 1995, a one-day meeting of grantees of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Anytime, Anyplace Learning Program met in Philadelphia to discuss their work and share their experiences. Ninety individuals attended this first event. This meeting grew into an annual event for the next five years. In 2001, it was decided that the event be expanded into a full conference with paper submissions and reviews, workshops, and exhibit areas. The University of Central Florida agreed to host the conference in Orlando in November. That was a fateful decision as the attack on the World Tr...

This paper presents the results of a pilot study investigating the use of the Realizeit adaptive learning platform to deliver a fully online General Psychology course across two semesters. Through mutual cooperation, UCF and vendor (CCKF) researchers examined students’ affective, behavioral, and cognitive reactions to the system. Student survey results indicated that students found the system easy to use and were generally positive about their seamless transition to adaptive learning. While the majority of students were successful, learning outcome metrics utilizing Realizeit indices indicated a potential for early prediction of students who are likely to be at risk in this environment. Recommendations are presented for the benefits of cooperative research between users and vendors.

We are pleased to present this Online Learning Journal special issue devoted to learning analytics for online teaching and learning. The nine papers contained here provide a range of information including reviewing the literature, examining frameworks in development, presenting a large scale analysis on the effectiveness of learning modalities from the PAR Framework, examining an international study of learning, and providing real-world learning analytics case studies on transfer, facilitation, and medical education. Each of these papers provides new and informative research that we hope can help readers make decisions about applying analytics within the context of their own online teaching and learning environments. While research studies on analytics are beginning to populate journals and conferences, many of those articles are aimed at a more limited audience of researchers. This collection of articles presents readers with information about designing environments within online learning while also highlighting studies that expand upon what exists in currently published research. The authors here represent a significant contribution to practical decision making for administrators, insights for faculty teaching online courses, and works for other researchers to build upon.

BlendKit is a 5-week course designed by the University of Central Florida in an open, online format specifically for the professional development of higher education faculty and designers preparing to design and teach blended learning courses. The evaluation of this course provides us with interesting and valuable information on the success of using an open approach of a MOOC compared to more traditional, highly structured professional development offerings typically seen in higher education. This article will focus on the lessons learned from the third iteration of this open, online course.