Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Olga Salnikova

Abstract

At a rural community college in Western Canada, the number of nontraditional e-learning students has increased to over 50% of the total student population; however, there is lack of understanding about how nontraditional students become engaged in e-learning courses. The purpose of this study was to investigate what teaching and learning strategies contribute to first-year, nontraditional students’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement in e-learning courses. Engagement contributes to retention and completion. The theoretical base for this explanatory sequential mixed methods case study with a qualitative focus included Garrison, Anderson, and Archer’s community of inquiry model for the quantitative portion. The conceptual framework for the qualitative portion was based on Kearsley and Shneiderman’s theory of student engagement. Out of 149 e-learning students invited to participate in Dixson’s Online Student Engagement survey, 31 self-identified nontraditional students completed the survey. Quantitative data were analyzed using Kendall’s tau-b to determine the associations between online engagement strategies and students’ own assessment of their engagement. Resulting were no, low, and moderate associations. Qualitative data from open-ended survey questions produced deeper understanding of students’ engagement through themes of cognitive presence, social presence, teaching presence, institutional presence, and meaningful learning. In one-on-one interviews, 7 faculty members provided further understanding of students’ engagement themed as teaching presence, cognitive presence, and meaningful learning. The qualitative data analysis process involved both provisional and in vivo coding. The positive social change implications include the potential to improve e-learning engagement and increase program completion rates for marginalized students.

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