Abstract
Online delivery has the potential to offer significant benefits in achieving multiple goals related to sustainable education. For example, students from a variety of backgrounds can access educational opportunity, allowing for vast dissemination of education. In addition, the methods employed in online learning are generally much lower in carbon intensity, providing an added operational benefit to online education. Beyond these stated benefits, we must also identify what components of online education are deemed effective from the student’s perspective. This article summarizes a recent study conducted by the authors on overall student self-assessment of learning at a major online university, and compares these results with general pedagogical assumptions regarding the perceived benefits of online learning. The goal is to highlight what factors students find important in ensuring quality learning outcomes in the online learning environment. The extension of this work is to link successful components of online delivery to the general achievement of sustainability in education delivery methods.
Highlights
The use of online learning is increasing in higher education
Students who have engaged in “deep learning” would more readily identify a greater satisfaction in self-learning. These results suggest, at a minimum, that online learning can be an effective tool in achieving sustainability outcomes in various measures
Based on what has been presented, online education can provide a sustainable vehicle for the delivery of education, while ensuring a high degree of student satisfaction, both in terms of actual and perceived learning outcomes
Summary
There are a number of reasons why this is occurring, including its potential to provide flexible access to content and instruction at any time, from any place and cost-effectiveness for institutions of higher education. Online learning can increase the availability of learning experiences for learners who cannot, or who choose not to, attend traditional face-to-face (onsite) offerings, it offers an opportunity to disseminate course content more cost-efficiently, and enables higher student to faculty ratios while maintaining a level of outcome quality equivalent to face-to-face instruction. Students who have engaged in “deep learning” would more readily identify a greater satisfaction in self-learning. These results suggest, at a minimum, that online learning can be an effective tool in achieving sustainability outcomes in various measures. Based on what has been presented, online education can provide a sustainable vehicle for the delivery of education, while ensuring a high degree of student satisfaction, both in terms of actual and perceived learning outcomes
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