Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching Psychology Courses Online

There is evidence of the pedagogical effectiveness of online teaching and the teaching styles that work best with it. However, few studies have looked at the specific pedagogical approaches in relation to specific learning variables such as cognitive components, motivational components, and social components, and the online teaching features that make distance education so useful and preferred by many students. The present study was designed to help establish policies and guide strategies to prepare both students and instructors for distance education. Students (N=189) in a course using Blackboard, a distance learning software package that allows for teaching of courses asynchronously, participated in a study to determine the usefulness of using the various features of the software either as an online course or as a supplement to face-to-face instruction. Preliminary findings indicated that given the format in which the course is taught as well as the academic area, pedagogical use of certain online teaching features varied. Both formats, either completely or partially online, are conducive to learning, but most importantly, students' writing skills seemed to improve more when completing online courses. Several suggestions are given for teachers of psychology on how to enhance a partial or complete online class. (Contains 10 figures and 29 references.) (JDM)