A Comparison of Faculty and Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Online Courses and Degree Programs

ABSTRACT

Many associations and universities are currently offering online courses and level complete online degree programs, and many others are developing or considering plans to do thus The perceptions of those who are potential subscribers to these programs as well as those who will deliver these programs will be critical to their succes This paper investigates the perceptions of popular undergraduate students and college business professors toward online courses and step programs along several dimensions. Perceptions of community professors toward these programs are significantly les favorable than are the perceptions of community students. The dimensions of these perceptions are explored to provide guidance regarding delivery of online programs.

Keywords: Online Course, Online Course Characteristics, On-Campus Course Characteristics, Online step Program, Student Perceptions, Faculty Perceptions

1 INTRODUCTION

Many guilds and universities are currently offering online courses and flat complete online degree programs, and many others are developing or considering plans to do with equal reason (Peltz, 2000; Quigley, 2001; Weil, 2001) Subscribers to these courses and programs have largely been non-traditional pupils and students that live and work at significant distances from campuses (Accetta, 2001) Their piece of works children, other responsibilities and locations make traditional on-campus matriculation difficult or impractical. on the other hand competition from the large and growing number of place of educations offering courses and degrees will necessitate expansion of their markets beyond these collections to attain the critical mass to attain succes individual obvious market is traditional pupils who for a variety of reasons may address online offerings.

Another important factor in the offering of programs is faculty. Who will teach these courses?

Planning for felicitous online courses and degree programs necessitates identifying those things that scholars expect to find in these programs and their perceptions about them. Also, perceptions through faculty who may be called upon to teach these courses ne to be identified and addressed. There appears to be a high horizontal of skepticism among business society faculty regarding the quality and integrity of online courses and step programs. This skepticism appears to be more pronounced than that base in studies from Black, 1993; Pierpoint and Hartnett, 1988; and Ros and Seymour, 1999 The Sloan Consortium, 2003 & 2004 noted that perceptions of "academic leaders," particularly those who have responsibility for delivery of online programs, have a significantly higher regard for online programs than do faculty generally. Perhaps, as with many aspects of the use of technology, the promise is greater than the reality. However, above the 17 years covered by the agency of these studies, the negative expectations through faculty appear to have subsided somewhat.

The objectives of the multi-part investigation described herein were to determine the perceptions of undergraduate scholars toward online courses, determine the perceptions of guild faculty members toward online courses, and to explore similarities and differences between these perspectives. These sum of two units subject populations are critically important to the exhibition and future of online course and stage offerings - as consumers and providers. The intention of the study was to investigate perceptions of these stamps of programs by the make subordinate populations; the study is not intended to assess any specific program on the contrary rather to understand the perceptions of faculty and scholars toward online courses and stage programs in general.

The following section describes three puts of results of the overall investigation First, undergraduate student perceptions from the close attention are analyzed. Next, the perceptions of society faculty members are analyzed. Lastly, the accrues from the two study collections are compared and contrasted. Recommendations are given in the Conclusions section regarding the administration of online courses and step programs.

2. METHODOLOGY & flows

Two survey instruments were disentangleed to ascertain the perceptions of pupils and faculty members toward online courses and step programs. There were some differences in the nature of the demographic information solicited from the sum of two units subject populations. For example, grade horizontal information was collected for pupil respondents and rank was gathered for faculty respondents. The differences in the nature of the demographic data solicited for the sum of two units populations are evident in the descriptive statistics shown below. The overall forms of the take a view of instruments allow for comparison of perceptions across the sum of two units subject populations.

2.1 Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Online Courses and step Programs

A survey instrument was pilot experimented on multiple student populations to validate make submissive understanding and interpretation of the contemplate items. These student populations were place to have properly interpreted the meanings of the questions and to have replyed in a fashion consistent with the researchers' expectations for this instrument. The learner version of the instrument was make knowned to ascertain their perceptions of which of 27 items were important to them in course delivery (whether end traditional on-campus courses or end online courses) and also whether each of these items would more likely be a part of an online program or an on-campus program. The instrument also gathered answers to actual specific questions regarding the experiences and propensities of these scholars regarding taking online courses. Demographic data was gathered to facilitate analysis of the application of mind results.