Student and instructor perceptions of care in online graduate education: a mixed methods case study
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to understand what language and strategies instructors and students
perceived as conveying caring in online graduate education. Using Nodding’s (1984, 1988, 1995,
2001, 2002) care theory, questions were crafted for structured interviews and a survey. The study
was conducted at a Midwestern, midsized university. Structured online interviews were
conducted with the instructors, and an online survey was offered to students in the eight
participating graduate instructors’ courses with 46/222 students responding. The researcher
conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis of all data, including a document review of the
instructors’ course delivery shells, investigating language usage in Announcements, Discussion
Boards, and Assignment Feedback in the Gradebook for triangulation of the data. The findings
supported the three major constructs of Noddings’ care theory. The first construct was mental
attentiveness in which students indicated the importance of the immediacy of feedback. The
second construct was affective engagement, in which students expressed that feedback include
specific comments and praise with caring language and concern for the students’ personal
situations. The third construct was reciprocity, which students conveyed the importance of
student-instructor interaction in the discussion board and also of video conferencing in order to
promote reciprocal interaction. The findings of this study may lead to actions by instructors that
could convey more caring and increase student engagement, satisfaction, and achievement,
thereby assisting colleges and universities in their retention efforts. Most importantly, the
findings may add to the existing literature of what a caring graduate instructor-student
relationship encompasses in online education.
Description
Dissertation (Ed.D.)--Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Educational Leadership
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