6.3 Online student satisfaction

Ncpea publications

Editors

• Janet Tareilo, Stephen F. Austin State University
• Brad Bizzell, Virginia Tech

Associate Editors

• Beverly Irby, Sam Houston State University
• Rosemary Papa, Northern Arizona University
• Thomas Valesky, Florida Gulf Coast University
• Theodore Creighton, Virginia Tech

About the Author

• Dr. Pauline M. Sampson , associate professor and superintendent program coordinator at Stephen F. Austin State University has 27 years of experience in public education as teacher, consultant, principal, special education director, and superintendent. She has authored 28 articles and 2 books with her research interests on effective schools and women leadership.

Introduction

Student satisfaction is an espoused factor when evaluating online courses. The role of student satisfaction in the future course development of leaders in educational leadership preparation programs has multiple implications. As a result, various factors and definitions of student satisfaction have been used to aid instructors in developing online courses where students can learn to be successful educational leaders. Due to the emerging connections between competitive markets offering online courses and the increasing number of students taking online courses, the ability to incorporate student satisfaction may lead to the sustainability of an educational leadership program at a given university.

The growth of online course enrollments grew by ten percent during the last academic school year (Kolowich, 2011). Additionally, open resources such as Connexions and Saylor.org are increasingly being met with an openness from faculty (Kolowich, 2011). Some of the advocates of open resources suggest that this openness may be due to the perceived potential cost savings. College administrators and faculty have shifted the delivery of educational leadership courses because of this market competition which is driven by the demands of the students for flexibility and convenience for the opportunity to take courses.

One of the more prevalent surveys of online courses that has been conducted over the last ten years is by Sloan Consortium. This survey is conducted yearly in conjunction with the Babson Research Group, the College Board, and the Sloan Consortium. The survey looks at a comparison of retention rate for students in online courses and traditional courses, course learning outcomes, faculty training and acceptance of online teaching, and economic impacts of online courses. The findings from this survey provide a look at these factors over ten years. It is hypothesized that faculty need to understand student satisfaction in order to design quality instruction that meets the market demand for convenience of instruction, such as is offered in online course delivery. Within student satisfaction of online courses then leads to the need for a way to define satisfaction that is relevant to educational leadership courses in order to create courses that are beneficial. As such, the term student satisfaction is presented as a common definition, background of online courses, purpose for understanding student satisfaction of online courses, and then followed by factors researched in connection with student satisfaction of online courses.