Predictors of Instructor Practices and Course Activities that Engage Online Students
Much research on student engagement has recommended a variety of activities and instructor attitudes and behaviors that effectively engage online students such that they are more likely to persist in achieving their educational goals. This study asked online students how often they engaged in research-based effective activities in their courses and how much their instructors engaged them, but used prediction models to find out which activities and instructor attitudes/behaviors predicted the most engaging activities and instructor attitudes and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to provide instructors with the most effective strategies in terms of activities designed in their courses along with attitudes/behaviors to emulate that would have the most positive effect for engaging students. Such data would also inform the curriculum for faculty professional development.
