Online Undergraduate Course Research Articles

Exploring Debugging Challenges and Strategies Using Structural Topic Model: A Comparative Analysis of High and Low-Performing Students

Debugging is essential for identifying and rectifying errors in programming, yet time constraints and students’ trivialization of errors often hinder progress. This study examines differences in debugging challenges and strategies among students with varying computational thinking (CT) competencies using weekly coding journals from an online undergraduate CT course. Participants used Scratch, a block-based programming language, and their journals from five assignments were analyzed using Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and Structural Topic Modeling. High-performing students engaged with diverse topics and specific blocks tied to their weekly projects while low-performing students faced repetitive and broad challenges, such as understanding motion blocks and broadcast concepts. These patterns reveal that low-performing students struggle particularly during the ‘diagnose the fault’ phase of debugging, often hindering their progress in the final stage. Such challenges highlight the necessity for targeted educational interventions to improve the debugging proficiency and overall CT skills. The study underscores the importance of further research into students’ logical thinking processes during code review and debugging, suggesting the use of think-aloud protocols and detailed tracking of debugging practices for deeper insights. This research contributes to the field by showing that differentiated instruction and strategic support can enhance debugging skills across different student performance levels.

Effectiveness of compressed online undergraduate courses

AbstractAs universities seek to innovate to meet the needs of students, compressed courses are becoming more prevalent. This study compares a compressed‐format course to a traditional format course in economics that were each taught in the summer. Results indicate that student performance in a compressed course differs in meaningful ways. Effort‐based assessments show that students in a compressed course perform just as well and, perhaps, better than students in a traditional‐length course. However, assessments measuring mastery of course material indicate performance declines in compressed courses. Student ratings also indicate that students may perceive their experience in a compressed course as being worse than in a traditional format. This article analyzes the differential performance between the two types of courses and provides a discussion regarding possibilities for future compressed course design.

Exploring the Impact of Gamified Role-Playing on Climate Change Knowledge and Nature Relatedness: Evidence from an Online Undergraduate Course on Environmental Health

Exploring the Impact of Gamified Role-Playing on Climate Change Knowledge and Nature Relatedness: Evidence from an Online Undergraduate Course on Environmental Health

Linking self-regulated learning to community of inquiry in online undergraduate courses: A person-centered approach

AbstractThe Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has gained widespread recognition as a theoretical model for understanding student learning in online environments. Despite its prevalence, CoI has been critiqued for its limited emphasis on learners’ proactive roles in self-regulating their own learning. To address this, researchers have suggested integrating self-regulated learning (SRL) into the CoI framework. This integration calls for empirical research to explore the relationship between SRL and the three established CoI presences: teaching, social, and cognitive. Using a person-centered approach, this study examines how varying SRL skills among 750 undergraduate students in an online introductory mathematics course are related to the three CoI components. Latent profile analyses identified five distinct SRL profiles: minimal regulators, low regulators with limited social skills, low regulators, moderate regulators, and competent regulators. We found that students in higher SRL profiles demonstrated higher perception of CoI, whereas those in relatively lower SRL profiles showed lower levels of perceived CoI. Our findings underscore the importance of incorporating self-regulation in the CoI framework for a more comprehensive understanding of online learning.

Concept mapping in an Online Undergraduate Pathology Course: Integrating etiology, pathophysiology, and clinical aspects of disease

Concept mapping has proven to be a useful tool in science education by helping students make connections between facts thereby establishing hierarchies of knowledge. These hierarchies enable students to assimilate information into meaningful reference memories. During the COVID pandemic, classroom activities were severely limited, creating a lack of classroom engagement. Online classes replaced in-class lectures, decreasing opportunities for student contact. To address this pedological shortcoming, concept maps were utilized in an asynchronous online pathology course for pre-health profession undergraduate students. Students asked to create a concept map for a disease, connecting the disease’s pathophysiology, etiology, and clinical considerations. Rough drafts of maps were given feedback to improve connections and flow of the maps. Maps were graded using a rubric modified from several sources, and points were awarded when connections were made within and between the three main pillars of pathology. There were many types of creative maps. Course evaluations indicated that students enjoyed concept mapping as a learning alternative to standard class assignments. The overall goal was to provide a precursor activity that would enhance students’ abilities to utilize algorithms in clinical settings. No support was required. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

Online education and learning management system usage in a South African Economic and management faculty during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the rapid move of Higher Education from face-to-face to online formats worldwide; initially referred to as emergency remote teaching. As Higher Education transitions into a “new normal” of online and blended education, how educators had transitioned to online spaces at an historically Black and disadvantaged university in South Africa was explored; more specifically, how educators were using the Sakai learning management system (LMS)/virtual learning environment (VLE). This study investigated the instructional design and educational-soundness of online pedagogical practices. To this end, forty-eight (48) online undergraduate course sites from an Ecnomic and Management Sciences faculty were reviewed from nine departments and programmes, according to socio-constructivist and Universal Design of Learning (UDL) principles. It was found that Sakai LMS/VLE tool usage was skewed towards administrative, evaluative and management functions over pedagogical functions: communication (83%), evaluation (83%), content (71%), monitoring (67%), and collaboration (52%). While most courses included varied types of learning activities, they were dominated by traditional and passive approaches, and less inter/active approaches: acquisition (89%), practice (71%), production (64%), discussion (35%), collaboration (31%), and investigation (8%). The results from this study will guide future staff development initiatives to improve LMS/VLE instructional design and online educational practice. Future research includes qualitative exploration of both staff and student experiences. Implications for equity, social justice and transformation in South African Higher Education, and related contexts, are emphasised.

Developing an observation protocol for online STEM courses.

The use of online instruction for undergraduate STEM courses is growing rapidly. While researchers and practitioners have access to validated instruments for studying the practice of teaching in face-to-face classrooms, analogous tools do not yet exist for online instruction. These tools are needed for quality design and control purposes. To meet this need, this project developed an observational protocol that can be used to collect non-evaluative data for the description, study, and improvement of online, undergraduate STEM courses. The development of this instrument used a sequential exploratory mixed methods approach to the research, design, pilot-testing, refinement and implementation of the protocol. Pairs of researchers tested the final version of this instrument, observing completed online undergraduate STEM courses. Across 2,394 pairs of observations, the observers recorded the same indication (yes or no to the presence of some course element) 1,853 times for an agreement rate of 77.4%, falling above the 75% threshold for an acceptable level of agreement. There was a wide range in the inter-rater reliability rates among items and further revisions were made to the instrument. This foundational work-in-progress instrument should be further developed and used by practitioners who are interested in learning about and reflecting on their online teaching practice.

The impact of teacher video presence on student performance and satisfaction in undergraduate accounting courses

ABSTRACT The current study examines the impact of teacher video presence on student performance and satisfaction in a regular asynchronous online course required as part of an undergraduate accounting program. For a sample of 115 students registered in the course, the results indicate that ‘enhanced strategic’ teacher video presence does not lead to better learning outcomes than use of videos with no teacher video presence. However, it does increase the satisfaction of students who do not participate in separate Zoom meetings with the teacher. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze the impact of teacher video presence in a regular 15-week asynchronous online course in an undergraduate program, including impact on student satisfaction. By comparing two extremes, ‘enhanced strategic’ teacher video presence and no teacher video presence, the experiment provides an acid test of the effect of teacher video presence in a regular undergraduate online course.

Evaluation of a PlayPosit guided group project’s impact on student engagement in an undergraduate course

Student engagement is critical for meaningful learning and can be impacted by teaching methods, tools, and course content. Online student engagement continues to be challenging because online classes offer fewer ways to engage with professors, peers, and the university than in-person classes. PlayPosit is a video teaching tool that incorporates questions to check for understanding. Our study aimed to evaluate how a PlayPosit guided group project impacted engagement in a structured online learning environment. For this qualitative study, a PlayPosit guided group project was implemented in an online undergraduate course taught via Canvas learning management system. Engagement was evaluated using online course analytics and student’s written feedback. Canvas reports were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and students’ written feedback was analyzed using directed content analysis. All 29 students enrolled in the course completed the course successfully. They completed 99.3% of the PlayPosit activities with accuracy 87.6–100% and completed the course project with scores 89–100%. Student comments were grouped into themes related to PlayPosit, group project, and engagement. Students found PlayPosit activities helpful/beneficial, aligned with deliverables, a great learning resource, and enjoyable. Students recognized the group project for its importance in teaching them collaboration, expressed that it enabled them to learn more from each-other, was an enjoyable networking experience, and was challenging. Engagement themes included knowledge gained was applicable to the real world, the course stimulated higher-order thinking, and the course was enjoyable and kept students wanting more. This study suggested that a PlayPosit guided group project was well-received by students and contributed to high engagement with the content, peers, and the professor.

“I’m Not Teaching Them Per Se”: Designing and Delivering Asynchronous Undergraduate Online STEM Courses

Although online courses have been a part of academia for nearly 30 years, they are still perceived as “different” than face-to-face instruction. Through in-depth interviews with four instructors, we explored how STEM faculty approach teaching asynchronous online undergraduate STEM courses. The faculty interviewed for this study viewed online courses as “not regular class[es]” and teaching those classes as “not teaching per se.” Each of the instructors had assumptions about what a classroom was and about good instruction, but even for instructors who taught online for multiple years, those assumptions remained grounded in the face-to-face environment. There is a need for greater discussion about what it means to teach in an online environment.

Challenges and Successes of Emergency Online Teaching in Statistics Courses

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early months of 2020, education at all levels was pushed to emergency fully remote, online formats. This emergency shift affected all aspects of teaching and learning with very little notice and often with limited resources. Educators were required to convert entire courses online and shift to remote instructional approaches practically overnight. Students found themselves enrolled in online courses without choice and struggling to adjust to their new learning environments. This article highlights some of the challenges and successes of teaching emergency online undergraduate statistics courses. In particular, we discuss challenges and successes related to (a) technology, (b) classroom community and feedback, and (c) student-content engagement. We also reflect on the opportunity to continue to enhance and enrich the learning experiences of our students by using some of the lessons learned from emergency online teaching as new permanent online statistics courses are developed and/or moved back into the classroom.

Beyond reading together: Facilitating knowledge construction through participation roles and social annotation in college classrooms

Social reading is a common practice in higher education to engage students in critical reading and classroom dialogues around course materials. This paper introduces a study that integrated a social annotation technology and a scaffolding framework to support social reading in undergraduate classrooms. The framework, grounded in the computer-supported collaborative learning literature, specifies three participation roles—namely, facilitator, synthesizer, and summarizer—that have distinct responsibilities in each week's social reading activities. Using Hypothesis, the social annotation technology, we piloted the framework in a fully online undergraduate course. To examine how the framework facilitated social interaction and knowledge construction, we applied social network analysis and content analysis to a rich dataset. Results revealed that the framework fostered active participation in class with students followed the assigned roles properly. This study has practical implications for online teaching and collaborative learning in higher education.

Researching Student Interaction with GIS Software While Learning Spatial Concepts: Toward a Standard Measure of GIS Interaction

A better understanding of differences in the nature of human computer interaction (HCI) relating to GIS software can help with learning spatial concepts and spatial thinking skills. This motivates our study, which aims to create a standard measure of interaction with GIS software that can be used individually or along with existing measurement instruments for spatial thinking to generalize results across studies for evaluating GIS interaction and usability. The study developed a composite taxonomy identifying types of user interactions and strategies with GIS in relation to different spatial concepts and processes of reasoning. The taxonomy was used as a framework to create tasks which users can complete with GIS software as a measure interaction with GIS. Study data were collected from 35 students enrolled in an online undergraduate course covering fundamentals of geographic information science and technology. Following three course assignments using GIS software to demonstrate a range of spatial concepts for problem solving, students completed various tasks constituting the standard measure of GIS interaction. The results indicate that the standard measure succeeds in measuring how individuals interact with GIS and strategize to complete different spatial tasks. The standard measure of GIS interaction will be useful for the development of usability guidelines for GIS and further contributes to research in the acquisition and application of spatial concepts and reasoning in learning environments.

An Online Module to Promote Self-Care and Resiliency in Nursing Students.

Because the demands of nursing education can impact the physical and mental health of nursing students, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's revised Essentials require inclusion of self-care and resilience education in nursing curricula. This article describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a self-care module in a new online undergraduate course. Using the REST mnemonic (relationships, exercise, soul, and transformative thinking), students developed personalized self-care plans for the semester. End-of-course evaluations revealed an increase in self-care activities. The most used activities were exercise, humor, intentional rest, and healthy eating.

Effectiveness of H5P in improving student learning outcomes in an online tertiary education setting

Innovative, pedagogically informed instructional design is instrumental in increasing student engagement and improving learning outcomes in online learning environments. Interactive learning resources provide students with the opportunity to engage with content in a more personalised manner. H5P (HTML 5 Package) is a collaborative platform that allows developers to create interactive content and has been regularly used in education settings. Some evidence suggests using interactive H5P resources in online education courses could lead to greater student engagement. However, to date, there has been little investigation into whether H5P resources can improve student learning outcomes. The current study aimed to assess whether using interactive H5P resources improved assessed learning outcomes in an online undergraduate psychology course. A randomized cross-over design was utilized to test whether students exposed to H5P interactive videos had improved assessment results when compared to a control group. This study found no meaningful differences in assessment scores between students exposed to H5P versus those that were not. There was low overall engagement with the interactive content. However, students who did engage with the resources reported a positive experience and indicated a preference for more interactive elements in future courses. Future research should extend on the instructional design obstacles identified in this study, for example, by examining whether improved accessibility and education on the benefits of interactive resources would increase engagement and grades.

Comparative Study of Game-based e-Pedagogies in an Online Undergraduate Course

Comparative Study of Game-based e-Pedagogies in an Online Undergraduate Course

Concept Mapping and Reading Comprehension

This paper describes a concept mapping teaching exercise that was implemented in different stages at both the graduate and undergraduate level. First, a small group of graduate students worked to construct a concept map that illustrated the connections between published work as they prepared to take their qualifying examinations. A similar assignment—visually depicting connections between course readings—was implemented between the midterm and final exam in a large-section online undergraduate course. In the undergraduate course, there was noticeable improvement between midterm and final essay responses in which students compared and contrasted readings, and students reported perceptions of it as a valuable exercise. Structured interviews with both undergraduate and graduate students further confirm that concept mapping can improve learning outcomes at both levels of instruction. The project reveals important differences in the way that both sets of students approach relational exercises involving readings and suggests ways of using concept mapping to enhance students’ retention of the material.

Asynchronous Edward: Comparing Online Responses to Gender in Christopher Marlowe's <i>Edward II</i> and Elizabeth Cary's The History of the Most Unfortunate Prince Edward II

This essay examines how students in an online undergraduate English literature survey course (in 2023) reacted to and wrote responses in forum posts to a comparative reading of Christopher Marlowe’s sixteenth century play Edward II and Elizabeth Cary’s seventeenth century prose account of the same monarch.

Having qualified arguments: Promoting Pre-service teachers’ critical thinking through deliberate computer-assisted argument mapping practices

This study aims to investigate whether deliberate computer-assisted argument mapping practices are effective for promoting pre-service teachers' critical thinking and helping them make better arguments over time within a fourteen-week online undergraduate course. A design-based study nested within a factorial repeated measures design with a single group of pre-service teachers is conducted to fulfill this aim. Thirty-eight junior pre-service teachers, enrolled in an early childhood education department at a middle-sized university in Turkey, were recruited for the study. The primary data collection tool in this study was argument maps generated by pre-service teachers on various pedagogical and authentic cases by using an online free tool. Assessing critical thinking and the quality of argument maps, two different types of rubrics (holistic vs analytic) that appear to have the face and construct validity were located. Experimental evidence supports statistically significant progress in pre-service teachers’ critical thinking scores after engaging in deliberate computer-assisted argument mapping practices regularly as homework assignments. There is also sufficient evidence to suggest a moderate relationship between critical thinking and argument quality. The study advances our knowledge of engaging in deliberate computer assisted practices to be an appropriate course of action for promoting critical thinking by helping pre-service teachers diagram qualified arguments. It is apparent in this study the success of the use of a computer assisted argument mapping tool for promoting CT depends on to what extend students are engaged in constructing better argument maps with each round of practice and scaffold.

INITIAL ATTITUDES TOWARD STATISTICS ARE BETTER IN TRADITIONAL COMPARED TO ONLINE COURSES, AT LEAST UNTIL COVID-19

We examined students’ initial and concluding attitudes toward statistics based on course delivery methods. Students enrolled in either traditional or online undergraduate statistics courses (N = 196) completed the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics-36. At the beginning of the semester, students in traditional courses felt better about the course and believed it would be easier, compared to students taking statistics online. Attitude differences, however, were mitigated as traditional courses were forced online by the pandemic, and distinct attitudinal differences were not observed at the semester’s end. With limited offerings and restrictions on the delivery of traditional courses in the COVID-19 era, statistics educators should be cognizant of student attitudes, their potential for change, and how to best influence positive attitude shifts for different instructional formats.