The Perceptions of Students toward Online Learning at a Midwestern University: What Are Students Telling Us and What Are We Doing about It?

This action research explored attitudes and perceptions of students at a Midwestern university enrolled in at least one fully online course during fall 2012. Our objective was to initiate a study that gathered comprehensive information about the diversity of the online phenomenon at our university so that we could seek improvement as online designers and professors and subsequently share our findings with other instructors on campus who teach students within the targeted population. The study focused on student perspectives toward web-based instruction and student expectations and experiences in the areas of course format; technological support; interaction with faculty and peers; course flexibility and pace; assessment and feedback; and overall communication.An electronic survey blended a quantitative component in the form of 23 fixed response items with a qualitative element accomplished through two narrative response questions. For such responses, content analysis was employed to compress many words of text into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of coding. A total of 1,085 participated, with numbers varying for individual survey items. The critical themes that emerged spoke to the necessity for clear instructions, timely responses, instructor availability, and an overall course design that integrates appropriate, yet not overpowering, technology.