Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

EdD

College

College of Education and Human Services

Department

Not Listed

Committee Chair

Helen M. Hazi

Committee Member

Patricia Gaston

Committee Member

Ugur Kale

Committee Member

John Oughton

Committee Member

Nathan Sorber

Abstract

As a commonplace medium for instructional content in community colleges, the use of online courses is prevalent in higher education and is expected to continue to grow. While online classes offer a number of benefits to students, drawbacks of online education also exist. Because participants in an online classroom are not physically present together, they rely on communication tools to allow for interaction and collaboration. This study addressed the relationship between community college student perceptions of satisfaction of the use of asynchronous communication tools and community college student perceptions of satisfaction of social, teaching, and cognitive presence in a Region V community college. This study also addressed how that relationship varied depending on particular demographics of student program of study, age, gender, GPA, and prior online experience. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) instrument was utilized to measure social, teaching, and cognitive presence in the online classroom environment. A survey based on the literature review was developed to gather the perceptions of students’ satisfaction with the use of asynchronous communication tools in the online classroom. Tools included e-mail, discussions or forums, blogs or weblogs, wikis, and podcasting. The study population was the 1,363 enrolled students in the Spring 2014 semester who were taking at least one online course at the time the survey was conducted. The return rate was 31.5%. The study found eight conclusions: (1) these community college students are more satisfied with the use of three asynchronous communication tools: e-mail, discussions or forums , and podcasts, and less satisfied with the use of two asynchronous communication tools: wikis and blogs in online courses; (2) podcasts had the highest satisfaction among these community college students; (3) students who had taken three or more online courses were more satisfied with asynchronous communication tools in online courses; (4) students indicated a strong positive correlation in regards to student satisfaction with social, teaching, and cognitive presence; (5) not one specific presence emerged as more satisfying than the others for students; (6) demographics did not have a significant effect on student satisfaction with social, teaching, and cognitive presence; (7) students indicated a strong positive correlation between student satisfaction with the use of asynchronous communication tools and student satisfaction with social, teaching, and cognitive presence; and (8) students indicated a higher satisfaction with the use of e-mail and discussions when they had taken three or more online courses. Recommendations for practice and future research are included.

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