Experiences in Online Learning for Missouri Secondary Students: A Qualitative Study

Wooderson, Jared

Experiences in Online Learning for Missouri Secondary Students: A Qualitative Study

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This qualitative study was conducted in order to analyze students’ experiences of online learning at the secondary level. The study identified themes related to student experiences with online learning related to technology support, interaction with peers and instructors, and with course design. Interview questions were created to interview participants in order to address the research questions guiding this study. A total of 20 participants were interviewed for this study and interviews were conducted over the phone or in person. Participants were graduated students and were selected from the researcher’s own school district and districts from across the state. The researcher used single and cross-question analyses to identify common words, patterns, and phrases to determine themes for each research question. The interviews lead to the following conclusions: technology support was accessible and helpful, interaction in online courses felt forced but students desired more authentic interaction with both peers and instructors, courses were easy to navigate and were organized, and students overall felt courses were nonengaging, stressful, time consuming, and unnecessarily complicated. Educational implications and suggestions for further research in online learning from the findings in this study is described.

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