Thesis Statement: Students who take more online courses experience less learner engagement than those who spend time at traditional classes.
Annotated Bibliography
Dumford, Amber D., and Angie L. Miller. "Online learning in higher education: exploring advantages and disadvantages for engagement." Journal of Computing in Higher Education 30.3 (2018): 452-465. The authors of this journal article sought to examine how online learning affects student engagement. They argued that higher learning institutions' focus is on finding the best ways of delivering online learning course content. This study explored how online learning impacts the learners' engagement. The study findings revealed several important relationships between online learning platforms and student engagement for all students irrespective of their level of study. The researchers found that learners taking more online courses were more engaged in quantitative reasoning more than those attending traditional classes.
Nevertheless, the rate at which online learners engaged in discussions with diverse others, student-faculty interactions, and collaborative learning was higher than those for students attending traditional classrooms. In addition, the study revealed that online learners had lower quality of interactions and were not exposed to more effective teaching practices compared to students in traditional classrooms. The engagement between the percentage of courses taken online and various engagement indicators indicate that online learning platforms can enhance specific types of engagement while at the same time deterring others.
Instructions
Each of your research journal entries should be at least 270 words. In this installment, we ask you to focus on the following questions:
What do you want to learn about your focal topic for the class?
What questions do you want to answer?
How might you go about pursuing answers to these questions?
How has your understanding of your topic been evolving as you continue your research?