Are Student Perceptions of the Instructor Muted in Online Classes?

Author

Colwell, Joy L.

Author_Institution

Organ. Leadership & Supervision, Purdue Univ. Calumet, Hammond, IN

fYear

2005

fDate

19-22 Oct. 2005

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison and analysis of some of the summative course evaluation data for a 200-level course offered in fall 2002 and spring 2003 in both traditional and online formats. The data suggest that students\´ perceptions of the instructor are muted in the online format, resulting in more evaluation responses of "neither agree nor disagree" in questions evaluating the instructor in the online courses. Instructors in online courses should be aware of this effect, and structure their summative evaluations in a way which will yield useful data. Online instructors may need to rethink the types of questions asked in summative evaluations, or at the very least the ways in which these questions are phrased. It may be useful to monitor this trend in online courses to see if there is any impact on overall course evaluations, which could carry over into tenure and promotion decisions

Keywords

computer aided instruction; distance learning; educational courses; course evaluation data; online courses; online instructor evaluation; online teaching format; student perceptions; Computer aided instruction; Data analysis; Data engineering; Flexible manufacturing systems; Job shop scheduling; Monitoring; Performance analysis; Springs; Statistical analysis; Urban areas; Course evaluations; Distance learning; Instructor evaluations; Summative evaluations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frontiers in Education, 2005. FIE '05. Proceedings 35th Annual Conference

Conference_Location

Indianopolis, IN

ISSN

0190-5848

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9077-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FIE.2005.1611936

Filename

1611936