"It's Just Nice Having a Real Teacher": Student Perceptions of Online versus Face-to-Face Instruction

By Lisa P. Tichavsky, Andrea N. Hunt, Adam Driscoll, K. Jicha. 2015

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract With recent increases in online enrollment, undergraduate students are far more likely to experience an onlinelearning environment than they were in the past. While existing literature provides general insight into reasonswhy students may or may not prefer online instruction, it is unclear whether these preferences are shaped bystudent’s perceptions of online learning or actual experience with online courses. To address this gap,undergraduate students enrolled in either online (n=370) or face-to-face (n=360) courses were surveyedabout their course format preference. A content analysis of the responses was performed with the findingssuggesting that 1) student perceptions may be based on old typologies of distance education akin tocorrespondence courses, regardless of actual experience with online courses, and 2) course preferences arerelated to issues involving teaching presence and self-regulated learning. The implications of this research fordeveloping more effective online pedagogy are discussed.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8c15630b5322501ca4ad0ca178881c6fd2c24116

Citations in the corpus

• College students’ use and acceptance of emergency online learning due to COVID-19 (2020, unknown): “Tichavsky et al. (2015) examined the students’ motivations behind their preference for face-to-face or online learning.”