Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: Effective Online Course Design to Assist Students’ Success

The purpose of this study was to apply the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering & Gamson, 1991) to online course design to enhance students’ success in an online course. A survey was created to determine students’ perception of strategies and skills they perceived as important to complete an online course. The survey was created based on behavioral learning, cognitive learning, and social learning frameworks. The responses of the 179 students in this study in an undergraduate Computer Applications in Business course at a large southeastern university were categorized by the Seven Principles. Results of the survey showed the course design strategies and what students valued matched well with the Seven Principles Implications of the study provide evidence that good course design embeds the seven principles to ensure students are successful in the online learning environment.