Final Report

Paper Study-- Distance Learning and Student Satisfaction in Java
A. Settle, C. Settle, JUCS, Vol 13, Iss 9. 2007

Distance learning is an increasingly important way of delivering content for educational institutions. As a result, it is important to understand how the experiences that students have in distance-learning courses differ from the experiences of more traditional students.

In this article they obtain statistically significant results different from the earlier article when a distance-learning course that uses the dominant model is considered. In particular, the course evaluations for online and traditional sections of introductory Java programming courses varied in some notable ways.

The results of this study are different from the initial results obtained by the authors. Distance-learning students are less satisfied than either traditional students or their peers in live sibling sections with the course. The distance-learning students feel that the course is less well-organized and that the course objectives are not met as well.
This result cannot be attributed to the type of live section or to the type of Java course, as their restricted regression shows. This explanation is consistent with previous work on student satisfaction with online courses that has shown distance learning students to be sensitive to course organization and to rate the course poorly if excellent course organization does not compensate for a lack of interaction.

Most striking are the results for instructor-related questions. Distance-learning students rate the instructor lower on seven out of the twelve questions. While some are understandable, such as encouraging student participation, the effect spills over to other questions, such as the instructor’s knowledge of the subject, whether the students want to take another course with the instructor, or the instructor’s teaching effectiveness as compared to other instructors. Distance-learning students are unhappy with the course and attribute the change to the instructor. One hypothesis for these results is that an increasingly interactive class, which seems to be the situation when you consider the analysis of the data for live students, would highlight the shortcomings of the distance-learning format. Unable to understand that the situation is inherent to distance-learning courses using this format, some distance-learning students may penalize the instructor. Even those students who understand the situation lack the ability to express their frustration with the format.

Although Distance-learning is a trend now, it can’t replace traditional classes. No matter how flexible and convenient Distance-learning is, students and instructors can’t “feel” each other. Without face to face communication, miscellaneous questions and answers between students and instructors may be misinterpreted. I guess that’s why the “Distance-learning students are less satisfied than either traditional students or their peers in live sibling sections with the course”. I believe appropriate and timely classes face to face may improve the satisfactions of students with Distance-learning classes. No matter how many compliments the instructors and students gave, it couldn’t be better than smiles on their faces! ^__^