How Students' Experience in E-Learning Affects Their Judgements about the Quality of an Online Course

Abstract

The increasing attempts of traditional universities to introduce e-learning in its different modalities – ranging from fully online to different combinations between online and face-to-face pedagogical interactions - raise serious questions about the quality assurance of the learning experience. One possible approach to explore the quality of online learning is to adopt the perspective of the decision-makers, the higher educational institutions and their staff. Another approach is to investigate what are the different dimensions of quality online learning experience from the perspective of students. This article presents a study of students' opinions and attitudes about the quality of different elements in the pedagogical design of blended courses. The majority of the students involved in the research have had no or little experience in online learning. The authors try to find out whether there is a relation between the students' previous experience in e-learning and their judgements about different aspects of its quality.