Community colleges are increasingly offering online courses. In the United States alone, there were an estimated 6.7million students enrolled in higher education through online learning programmes as of 2021. According to the experts, many assignment writing services who are renowned for offering Paper Checker, also introducing newest platform of online courses delivered by subject experts!
This was an increase of 17% over 2020. From 2.14 million students in 2009 to a predicted 16.97 million in 2022, a Chronicle of Higher Education (2021) compilation of online demographics reveals a remarkable rise in the number of students taking purely online courses.
Ninety-six percent of all higher education public institutions provide possibilities for online learners, while associate’s degree-granting institutions such as community colleges enroll more than half of all online learners. Even different survey says that students are happy to get ideas on online courses from their Mechanical Engineering Assignment Help!
Now, let’s have a brief idea on the types and effects of online interaction
In the world of Internet-based online learning, interactions take place in a wide range of formats, and teachers combine emails, blogs, forums, conversations, and a growing number of synchronous and asynchronous modes to foster a feeling of community.
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History of the study
For centuries, people have believed that interaction is essential to learning achievement. Online engagement has been acknowledged as a contributing element to students’ success in online community college course offerings, according to Roblyer and Wiencke’s 2003 observation that interaction has “came to be considered a sine qua non for successful distance courses”.
Since online course makers and educators do not have enough power to express contempt for the fact that they are the primary designers throughout this type of educational module, the amount of engagement still remains a topic of interest.
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Description of the issue
It is unknown to what extent high course completion rates in online courses are correlated with the volume of student interaction. It is also unknown the form of interaction students prefer, which might have an effect on how many students complete the course. The body of research suggests that different approaches to instructional design lead to varying levels of involvement.
However, the majority of research emphasises the necessity of evaluating interactional traits to guarantee effectiveness. The quantity or frequency of interactions between students and instructors (I-S), students and other students (S-S), and students and course material (S-C), as well as the effect of this frequency on a student’s performance in completing the course, are further elements of instructional design.
Although interaction is a crucial component of effective online courses, little research has been done to determine whether having many interactions or, more specifically, what types of interactions predict higher course completion rates.
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Objective of the study
This mixed-method study’s goal is to investigate how frequently and what kind of interaction occurs in online courses in order to support the body of literature that supports purposely planned and actively rendered engagement.
In order to learn more about their preferences for interaction, course participants will also be surveyed. According to research, interaction in online learning courses is essential to success and has a favourable impact when it is included.
There isn’t much study on the right frequency, approaches, or procedures for the standardised design of interaction that can be implemented into the overall design to correspond to the highest completion and success rates.
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Rationale
Researchers, academics, and practising faculty working to increase student persistence and the proportion of students who successfully complete online courses are still debating the topic of interaction in these courses.
Understanding the link between interaction and academic success will take more study, especially at the community college level where a sizable atypical population is present.
This study will add to the body of mixed-methods research by examining the link between online course interaction and course completion, and it will also offer real-world advice to those tasked with creating and delivering online courses.
To help lower the attrition rates now encountered at the community college level, greater understanding of interaction may provide instructional designers with comprehensive and specific ways for improving the frequency of the proper sorts of interaction.
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Research issues
The goal of this study is to evaluate whether there is a statistically significant association between the volume of interactions and student success rates in online courses through a mixed-methods analysis.
Although every effort will be made to avoid doing so, useful statistical correlation will be provided in order to add to the body of knowledge on the subject. These parameters served as the foundation for the following study questions:
Primary: To what extent does the quantity of interactions in an online course, classified as “instructor-student” (I-S), “student-student” (S-S), and “student-content” (S-C), predict each participant’s rate of course completion?
Secondary: a) How does the overall course completion rate relate to the total number of interactions in an online course? b) How closely related is a participant’s successful completion of an online course to the overall number of interactions they have in the course? c) How closely does a participant’s preferred mode of involvement in an online course relate to their ability to successfully complete the course?
Is student-teacher contact a requirement in online educational programmes? are some more sub-research issues worth taking into account. Why do practitioners and theorists have different perspectives on the traditional expectations for online courses? What are the specific goals of designing online learning, according to people who create and deliver online course content?
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Significance of the study
This study’s significance is in exploring, evaluating, and measuring interactions in online courses to see if there is a relationship between their quantity and type and course completion rates. The significance of this study is related to the search for better ways to provide online courses in order to raise academic standards in a college environment.
Although it is customary for instructors to think that more contacts in a course would lead to higher course completion rates, the majority of the supporting data is either qualitative or anecdotal. Although the results of this formal and informal research are valuable, this study will also include a quantitative element to contribute to a bigger body of existing research.
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Term definitions
In order to assure a semantic grasp of this work, the terminologies below are defined.
- Asynchronous interaction:Interactivity that does not occur in real-time but allows for communication at a time that is convenient for the student or instructor. It can occur between students, between students and instructors, or between students and content.
- Attrition:The loss of students from a course as a result of administrative withdrawal, student withdrawal, or a lack of tenacity.
- Interactions: Online interaction falls into the following categories, according to Moore, who defined interaction as “reciprocal events that require at least two objects and two actions that mutually influence one another.” Wagner’s (1994) definition of interaction will be used for the purposes of this dissertation (2003).
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Assumptions and limitations
The basic assumption of this study is that a greater course completion rate is correlated with a student’s frequency of interactions, either individually or collectively.
A related premise is that some types of interaction will be more prevalent than others and will have a bigger impact on raising successful completion rates. The idea that pupils will favour particular forms of communication is the third.
Only the quantity and kind of interactions in community college online courses are examined in this mixed-methods study. Despite extensive research in this field being done by others, there is no qualitative analysis included.
The frequency and preference for a particular sort of interaction, as well as demographics like race and age that may have an impact on course completion, are not taken into account.
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Organisation of the study’s later phase
The literature review, methodology, data analysis, results, and finally conclusions and Recommendations make up the remaining chapters in this study. The purpose of the literature review is to highlight recent and prior studies on how interaction affects how successfully online courses are completed.
The mixed methodologies that were employed to conduct the research for this study and the associated data gathering techniques are covered in detail in the methodology chapter.
Wrapping up,
Why would we imagine that social connection would be any less important in an online course when there are so many possibilities for students to interact with their professors and one another in traditional classrooms? We know that this interaction is essential to student achievement. In online learning, social interaction can boost motivation and performance by increasing student involvement.