Assignment 1 - History of Distance Education

Kennedy, J. (2015, October). Beyond Beliefs: Examining Online Self-efficacy and Learner

            Engagement in Distance Education. In E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in

Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (Vol. 2015, No. 1, pp.

22-30).

Kennedy evaluated the engagement in an online course during one semester, with a focus on the varying levels of self-efficacy in regards with online learning. The article focused on three groups of students with varying degrees of self-efficacy and how they experienced engagements in an online course in higher education. The study defined self-efficacy as how the students held their own ability and beliefs to complete the required activities and actions for learning in an online course. The research on self-efficacy is limited with regards to online learning and engagement, so the study further focused on student satisfaction and motivation. Furthermore, internet and computer self-efficacy were included in the study with students and online learning. A survey was designed and distributed to the students that focused on the varying levels of self-efficacy with online learning. The survey entailed of five brief questions in the format of open-ended and sought responses on activities that they felt most engaged and most distanced. What activities and actions by the instructor were most beneficial and which ones were either puzzling or not useful to the students. Finally, the last question focused on what surprises the students encountered during the course. Engagement was measured on a four-point rating scale with the four topics being; content/activities, media/technologies, classmate/social presence, and instructor/teaching presence. Kennedy emphasizes in the study that students with a higher self-efficacy with computer, internet and prior online course experiences used more effective learning strategies, had higher motivation, which in turned increased their course satisfaction and their final grade. In Kennedy’s study there is an emphasis that motivation was a strong factor for the student learners in the course and that the studied showed a higher level of motivation for male over female students when it came to internet self-efficacy. It further appeared that prior online learning experience contributed to higher motivation and increased satisfaction with students registered in the course. Kennedy indicated that there was a strong correlation in regards to engagement in the course to motivation, overall satisfaction and the structural design of the course. Kennedy concludes the article noting that there were several limitations in the study and additional research that focuses on the instructional design of online courses in relation to the tools, motivation and engagement would be beneficial.