Digital Learning Impact Factors: Student Satisfaction and Performance in Online Courses

Abstract

 Abstract—As digital learning continues to spread and gain in popularity and acceptance, it is essential for both the providers and the users to understand the factors that impact student satisfaction and performance in online courses.In this study student evaluation parameters from 93 online graduate courses with total of 4920 student enrolments were analyzed for their interdependences as well as their correlation with student performance measured through final grade distributions. The results show that student course satisfaction is strongly correlated with students' instructor satisfaction, while the students' course satisfaction is moderately correlated with student satisfaction with facilitators. There is a positive correlation between students' final grade distribution and their overall satisfaction with the course as well as between the students' final grade distribution and the satisfaction with the instructor. On the other hand, the correlation of the students' satisfaction with the facilitators did not have statistically significant correlation with the final grade distribution. The results point to the critical importance of the instructor of record in online courses and to the significant impact of the students' satisfaction with instructor's performance. Moreover, the same factors have statistically significant impact on the performance of students in the class, together with the student perception of the overall academic quality of the course. At the same time, the data show that facilitators have a significantly lower impact than the instructors to the students' overall educational experience in online courses.