Date of Award

Summer 2010

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

STEM Education & Professional Studies

Program/Concentration

Occupational and Technical Studies

Committee Director

John M. Ritz

Committee Member

Philip A. Reed

Committee Member

Ginger S. Watson

Abstract

In 2005, over 100,000 e-Learning courses were offered in over half of all U.S. postsecondary education institutions with nearly 90% of all community colleges and four year institutions offering online education. Streaming video is commonplace across the internet offering seamless video and sound anywhere connectivity is available effectively making any location a learning environment. The problem investigated in this study was to determine factors that affect the learning satisfaction of students that video streamed courses. This study is important to enable improvements in curriculum, delivery of content, designs of alternative study venues, and guide college administrators in making decisions on classroom and instructor utilization.

Information was gathered by analyzing quantitative data obtained from surveys issued to 1593 students from a coastal Virginia university engaged in e-Learning via video streaming technology with nearly 21% responding. Statistical analyses were used to determine relationships between independent variables, e.g., video stream quality, motivation, physical environment, climate, communication, interactions, location, and video streaming experience and learning satisfaction (dependent variable). The analyses were used to report characteristics and basic features, e.g., ages, sex, degree sought, to furnish details of the population studied.

The results of this study indicated that the physical environment had a moderate correlation as well as significance on student satisfaction. The multiple correlation coefficient from the stepwise linear regression analysis between the predictor (student environment) and outcome (student satisfaction) indicated that student environment accounted for most of the variation in student satisfaction. Social climate had the greatest influence on student satisfaction with communication with instructor and classmate interaction following second and respectively third. With regard to motivational factors professional development was rated first with course availability, prerequisite requirements, and availability of a degree being the top four reasons for taking a video streamed class. Availability of a course exerted the greatest influence in the variation of student satisfaction. A stepwise linear regression revealed significant influence between the physical environment, video streaming experience, social environment, and video streaming class quality to overall student satisfaction with video streaming experience having the greatest influence on student satisfaction.

Education institutions should consider the home as the location of choice of video streaming students; consider more accommodating schedules for the non-traditional student; and consider work load, class size, and training for instructors of video streaming classes.

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DOI

10.25777/d6y3-x746

ISBN

9781124291758

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