STUDENT EXPERIENCE IN FULLY ONLINE FIRST YEAR GEOSCIENCE GENERAL EDUCATION COURSES

In recent years online courses have become an integral component of the post-secondary educational experience for international and domestic students alike. Online course offerings are rapidly becoming a desired delivery method for undergraduate courses in many post-secondary institutions.

This presentation features data collected at York University in Toronto, Canada from students across several large (150+ enrolment) first year online general education science courses. The courses cover a wide variety of topics including several in Earth and planetary sciences . Enrollment in these courses over the survey period (May 2017 to September 2018) exceeds 2000 students. Comprehensive student surveys have been analyzed to better understand the student population and their experience in these courses. Focus groups have also been conducted with students, instructors and teaching assistants.

The bulk of the results presented here are from Phase I of a three-year project, with the focus in the first year being on content delivery within the course. Preliminary results from Phase 2 which concentrates on assessment in these courses will also be presented. Survey results include demographics of students electing to take online courses. Information from the online student cohort is compared with general institutional demographics in order to assess the nature of students opting to take online vs. in-class courses. Consistent with anecdotal evidence, scheduling convenience emerges as a major factor in why students may choose an online course. More than 50% of students also report that this is not their first experience with online learning. This may reflect the demographic of the institution which has a large commuter population. Additionally, the nature of how students interact with the course reveals that most students will study in longer time blocks of up to 2 hours, but are prone to significant interruptions and multitasking attempts during their allotted study time. Course content delivery data collected from 2017-2018 academic year is combined with preliminary results from Fall 2018 online student assessment studies to provide a wholistic view of how virtually based students engage with and achieve in their online environment.