Teaching Virtual Online Courses in an Era of Negative Student Reviews

Abstract

Students of higher education are complaining about their online courses or faculty perhaps because universities are pushing to have classroom lectures converted to virtual learning delivery methods but without hiring qualified professors and failing to train faculty to effectively teach online. Different skills are required to effectively teach online courses as compared to lecturing in the classroom. To examine this problem, the author discusses the results of a mixed-methods research design consisting of an experiment followed by constructive feedback analysis. The experiment measured student grades from a standard teaching approach as compared with applying constructivism theory in the same online course at a university. The student outcome effect size for the treatment group was substantial and the analysis of constructive feedback evidence from the students was moderately supportive of the teaching approach.