Greetings Lawrence,

I spent some time reviewing your research and found it very interesting! Attached is a copy with my comments, questions, and suggestions. Good luck in your endeavors.

- Shanna

Shanna - I thought this was excellent feedback.  I many ways this research was the first of a series of research projects that I will be writing on.  To be honest - the application will require further research.  This would include institutional research looking at a single courses taught by all instructors within a given period of time.  This could be done looking from a program perspective.  The methodology could be modified to look for discontinuities in alignment between program and course objectives.  And , this could be done as part of a service to individual instructions so that they could further refine their online teaching skills.  So, yes - there are many more opportunities but I wanted to see whether this was a valid line of research.

From another perspective this can also facilitate a deeper look at the online pedagogy - capturing best practices with particular emphasis on instructional approaches that meet student needs. 

Again, thank you for your comments.   I will be incorporating them in the next iteration of the study. 

Larry

No problem, Larry. I'm glad I could be of help.  I hope you carry out your goals, as I would be quite interested to see the culimation of your efforts in the next few years!

Great job, Lawrence! I find that EOCSs are not always accurate because students who do not complete the work as indicated are mad and upset when filling out the surveys. For instance, if they get constant late penalty for consistently submitting late work, I see that they tend to blame the instructor for this. Therefore, they provide negative comments in the survey. On the other hand, I find that students like when the instructor responds to questions quickly and provides detailed feedback. These are just my experiences in reviewing my own surveys for the last 3 years. :-)

Hi Kristen

I think you make a great point and as a researcher we need to look for bias.  But those negative comments also tell us something.  It is a phenomenon worth exploring.  Could those negative comments be tied to the instructor's teaching methodology?  Could it be tied to the curriculum? Or does it reflect on the student?  Good questions.  What a longitudinal study does is reflect back to the instructor a more comprehensive view of how he or she is teaching - their effectiveness.  From a program perspective it also provides some clarity on whether the course objectives are aligned to the program and may glean suggestions to better align the learning experience.

If I were to use this approach from a professional development perspective I would look at one course and code all of the end of course surveys irrespective of instructors to capture the best and the worse lessons learned.  I could go farther -

Thank you again for your comments.  Do you see any improvements in the research design?

Larry

Nice work, Larry. You provided some detailed information to consider when reviewing the EOCS. One practice that I think would help in providing a bettter assessment of the course and instructor is to make the EOCS mandatory, as it once was to gain access to week 8.

I do not know your thoughts on this, but I find that now, there are two types of students who complete the surveys: those who did not do well and are not satisfied with a final grade, or the other extreme - those who excelled in the class. Either way, I use the EOSC to make improvements where necessary and continue the practices that receive positive comments. I do like the way GCU has separated the EOCS into the different areas.

Kathleen