A Guide to Online Course Design

Strategies for Student Success

Tina Stavredes, Tiffany Herder

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118791387
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Tecnología educativa

A Guide to Online Course Design offers faculty and professional staff a practical and easy-to-follow model for creating exceptional online courses that focuses on quality standards in instructional design, transparency in learning outcomes, and learner persistence. A comprehensive resource, the book includes effective, research-based instructional strategies to motivate online learners and help them become more self-directed. A Guide to Online Course Design emphasizes quality standards and removing barriers to learners' persistence, which ensures online courses meet the needs of online learners as well as distance education initiatives.

"All faculty members and course designers, regardless of experience level, content background, or technology skills, can benefit from applying the approaches defined in this book. The authors have imparted a wealth of knowledge that can improve the quality of any online class and I highly recommend this book for all those involved with online learning."
- Anton G. Camarota, faculty, University of Denver

"Anyone involved in developing online courses should read this book! Packed with great insights and the research to back them up, Stavredes and Herder guide readers with practical information that will support online course development."
- Brenda Boyd, director of professional development and consulting, Quality Matters Program

"The blend of theory and application makes A Guide to Online Course Design and indispensable resource for any professional seeking to create high quality, outcomes-based learning experiences. I loved the action steps that close each chapter, as they lead the reader through the entire process of course design from analysis to implementation."
- Kathe Kacheroski, dean of curriculum and instruction, Rasmussen College

PART 1

An Introduction to Persistence and Quality Design

In part 1, we introduce you to online learning, help you understand important persistence factors that affect learner success, and describe the design approach we take in this book to help you design your online course. In chapter 1, “Quality Design to Support Learner Persistence,” we discuss the need for online learning and define key persistence variables that affect online learners. We also consider quality standards for online course design to support learner persistence. In chapter 2, “The Instructional Design Process,” we introduce you to a backward design process that is based on an outcomes approach to course design.

Chapter 1

Quality Design to Support Learner Persistence

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Objectives

After reviewing this chapter, you should be able to

• Analyze persistence models to identify challenges and barriers online learners must overcome to be successful in their programs of study to lay the foundation for effective course design.
• Analyze the role of course quality standards in course development to support the creation of effective online courses.

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Online learning is at a crossroads. More and more individuals and institutions are turning to online learning as a way to meet a variety of learner, faculty, and administrative needs. According to the Sloan Consortium (2013), an organization dedicated to online education leadership, more than 6.7 million learners are taking at least one online course and 69.1 percent of higher education institutions state that online learning is critical to their long-term strategy. Financial pressures of dwindling enrollments, decreased funding, and high overhead costs are causing institutions to do more with less and look for alternative delivery methods for their curriculum. According to Allen and Seaman (2013), “online courses are those in which at least 80 percent of the course content is delivered online. Face-to-face instruction includes courses in which zero to 29 percent of the content is delivered online; this category includes both traditional and web-facilitated courses. The remaining alternative, blended (sometimes called hybrid) instruction has between 30 and 80 percent of the course content delivered online” (p. 7).

Institutions are offering a variety of instructional modes to meet the increasing demands from learners working full-time and needing flexible programs that meet their personal and professional goals.

With the rapid growth of online education, the focus has become the quality of learning outcomes from online courses. Reports show higher attrition rates for learners taking online courses so there is a growing need to understand factors that contribute to learner persistence in an online environment. The focus of this book is on the design of online courses that support learners' ability to persist in the online environment. Throughout the book, we refer to important concepts and strategies to support learner persistence. We also look at quality standards to support the design of an online course. In this beginning chapter, we present information on different persistence models that are relevant to online learning and help you understand important factors that may affect a learner's ability to successfully complete the course. We also discuss research on quality standards for online learning to help you create a quality online course that supports learners in achieving the intended learning outcomes.

Defining Persistence

Retention and persistence are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Retention is the ability of the institution to retain learners from matriculation through graduation. Persistence is learners' ability to persist in their educational journey to degree completion. Learners can persist but may not necessarily be retained by the institution. For example, learners may decide they are interested in a different program of study offered at another institution or they may decide that they are not a fit with the institution and decide to change schools. They are actually persisting because they are continuing their education, but the institution's retention numbers decrease as a result of learners transferring. Therefore, focusing on persistence can help us better understand the factors that contribute to a learner completing a course or dropping out. Research shows that when learners complete a course, they are more likely to persist in the next course (Billings, 1988), so focusing on learners' completion course by course can set them up for additional success throughout their program. Persistence models help us identify critical learner needs and integrate effective teaching and learning strategies to support learners' continued success.

Persistence Models

There is a long history of research and conceptual models to explain learner behavior and perceptions related to persistence. Among these models are several that focus on the design of online courses and support online learner persistence—Billings (1988), Kember (1995), and Rovai (2003).

Billings Persistence Model

Billings's (1988) model focused on correspondence courses; however, there are a couple of important insights that helped drive some key design elements in the effectiveness of today's online courses. First, Billings talked about how learners who submit assignments early on in a correspondence course often persist longer than those who wait a couple of months to submit their assignments. This demonstrated that structured activity deadlines in a course, especially early on, would help learners continue to persist. He also correlated persistence with higher entrance examination scores, higher GPA, and higher courses completed with greater chances of persistence. Therefore, the more successes learners have, the more likely they will continue to be successful. This makes a case for designing an online course experience that provides a high level of support to help learners successfully complete the course. Additionally, Billings discusses the importance of learners' intentions to complete as a variable in persistence. He believes that learners can overcome other factors that may lead them to drop out if their motivation to complete is strong. This indicates a strong need to build motivational elements into an online course to help learners develop and sustain their momentum.

Kember Persistence Model

Kember's (1995) model focuses on adult learners in an open learning model of distance education. This model provides a nice linear path for learners in a course. The model starts with how learners' entry behavior and early experiences lead them down one of two paths—a positive path or negative path. A positive path leads to social integration and academic integration in which learners adopt a deep approach to learning and the goal is not simply to complete the course or get a good grade but to gain knowledge and tap into motivations related to self-improvement and enrichment. A negative path leads to a focus on excuses for their performance based on external issues such as insufficient time, distractions, or unexpected events that get in the way. This path results in a surface approach to learning in which the focus is not on gaining important knowledge that will have a positive impact on their lives but on simply completing the course. Motivation is based on external rewards rather than the joy or benefits of learning. This indicates the importance of setting up early experiences for encouragement and creating a support system inside and outside the course as well as the need to connect coursework to activities relevant to learners' personal and professional goals.

Rovai Persistence Model

Although the Billings and Kember models provide us with some important insights into persistence and course design, Rovai's (2003) model provides us with a comprehensive look at the variables that affect learners' persistence in an online learning environment. Rovai evaluated several persistence models relevant to nontraditional and online learners and developed a composite model to explain persistence of learners enrolled in online courses (exhibit 1.1).

Exhibit 1.1 Rovai Composite Persistence Model

Rovai Composite Persistence Model (Rovai, 2003)	Variables prior to admission	Learner characteristics: Age, ethnicity, gender Intellectual development Academic performance Academic preparation Learner skills: Computer literacy Information literacy Time management Reading, writing skills Online communication skills
	Variables after admission	External factors (Bean & Metzner, 1985): Finances Hours of employment Family responsibilities Outside encouragement Opportunity to transfer Life crises
		Internal factors: Tinto (1975): Academic integration, social integration, goal commitment, institutional commitment, learning community Bean and Metzner (1985): Study habits, advising, absenteeism, course availability, program fit, GPA, utility, stress, satisfaction, commitment Workman and Stenard (1996): Learner needs: clarity of programs, self-esteem, identification with school, interpersonal relationships, accessibility to support and services Kerka and Grow (1996, as cited in Rovai, 2003): Learning and teaching styles

Rovai integrates Tinto's (1975) student integration model and Bean and Metzner's (1985) learner attrition model, in particular, which are both grounded in early psychological models on persistence and the idea of learner-institution fit as a key indicator of persistence. He builds off of Tinto's and Bean and Metzner's learner characteristics prior to admission, such as age, ethnicity, gender, intellectual development, academic performance, and academic preparation, and adds skills learners need to develop to successfully navigate the online environment including computer literacy, information literacy, time management, reading and writing skills, and online interaction skills. In course design, these are elements that you can use as a basis to build in personalization and scaffolding to help learners achieve the learning outcomes regardless of their starting point.

Once learners are admitted to a program of study, there are additional factors external and i...