Assessing Student Transitions in an Online Learning Environment

Abstract

Assessment surveys of students are often conducted in order to evaluate online learning activities. Most surveys measure responses to questions which are based on students’ subjective impressions. The purpose of this study is to examine participants’ assessments made during the transitional phase in an online learning environment which includes blended and fully online courses at a Japanese national university. Students were enrolled in two‑unit Master’s or Bachelor’s degree courses which were taught by the same professor. The total number of students with valid survey data was 184 (92 Masters, 67 Bachelors for the blended learning course and 25 Bachelors for the fully online course). A survey questionnaire consisting of 10 questions measured the self‑assessments of students’ online learning experiences. Three factors were extracted. There are no significant differences in all factor scores between the beginnings and the ends of the courses. These results show the coherence of students' assessments during the course. The correlation coefficients of the first factor scores (e‑learning evaluation) between the beginnings and the ends of the courses are not high, however (Masters: r=0.35, Bachelors for blended learning: r=0.46, and Bachelors for fully online: r=0.33). Therefore, some participants have changed their evaluations between the two surveys. When the differences in factor scores from the initial and final surveys are compared between students who rated the course highly at the beginning (high raters) and students who did not (low raters), the scores for the high raters decrease and the scores for the low raters increase. Also, the relationships between students’ transitions and the metrics of their behaviour were investigated.