Given the increasing number of learners in massive open online courses (MOOCs), students' self-directed learning (SDL) skills are necessary for their success. The purpose of this study was to explore learners' motivation for enrolling in MOOCs and their SDL strategies, as well as instructional elements that support SDL from learners' perspectives.…

We aim to understand the impact of scaffolds within a digital workbook to facilitate self-directed learning for learners completing a final project within a community and task-based MOOC. Optional reflection and articulation prompts were embedded in the tool support assignment development. Workbook use was prevalent, with 65% of learners using it…

As generative AI tools are increasingly popular in today's teaching and learning process, challenges and opportunities occur at the same time. Self-directed learning has been regarded as a powerful learning ability that supports learners in informal learning contexts and its importance rises in salience when incorporating AI into learning. This…

Engagement strategies play a crucial role in ensuring engaged and high-quality online learning experiences. In this mixed methods study, we examined online students' expectations and explored their experiences regarding online strategies of peer, instructor, self-directed, and multimodal engagement, using a survey and qualitative interviews. Our…

Hands-on lab experiences are essential for enabling students to be successful engineers, especially those who identify as kinesthetic learners. This case study describes how a Mechanical Engineering Practice course sequence was redesigned during the COVID-19 emergency transition to remote learning and examines how students responded to these…

This study aims to investigate students' self-regulation skills, confidence to learn online, and perception of satisfaction and usefulness of online classes in three learning environments that integrates ChatGPT. In this study, a quasi-experiential design was used to compare three online learning environments that integrate ChatGPT (independent,…

This study examines the strategies used by teachers during a series of self-directed online learning (SDOL) experiences. Over a period of four months, the authors met with 12 practicing elementary teachers three separate times. During the meetings, the teacher participants informally used the internet for their professional learning in literacy.…

Included in the discussions regarding the instructional and learning value of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is the question of whether MOOC learners gain much value, if any at all, and has been a continuing debate since MOOCs began. Skeptics argue that MOOCs lack academic rigor and are superficial, while proponents praise them as addressing…

The purpose of this study was to examine the underlying mechanism between goal orientations and academic expectation for online learners. We simultaneously studied the structural relationships among 2×2 achievement goal orientations, self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies, supportive online learning behaviors, and expected academic outcome in…

The concept of "instructional quality" is central to the design and evaluation of massive open online courses (MOOCs). As MOOCs from the field of business and management are gaining importance both in academia and professional learning, questions on how to determine and improve the quality of these offerings arise. In this paper, we…

Past research suggests that the use of an online learning orientation is an effective proactive strategy to ease online students' transition into online learning. Based on a sample of 3,888 online students from an urban public university, we used ordinal logistic regression to understand the influence of students' satisfaction with an online…

Research has suggested that independent study students in online courses may benefit from engaging with a proximate community of engagement (PCE) and that students perceive that such engagement will help them succeed. Independent Study students were surveyed at the completion of their course to assess the level at which they actually interacted…

Dual-layer MOOCs are an educational framework designed to create customizable modality pathways through a learning experience. The basic premise is to design two framework choices through a course: one that is instructor centered and the other that is student determined and open. Learners have the option to create their own customized pathway by…

This study contributes to the growing body of literature about what makes a successful online learning environment. Specifically, it addresses assumptions made about online learning environments--regarding self-determination and adult learners--by measuring students' perceptions and preferences for teaching behaviors that they believe help them…

"Gamified" active learning has been shown to increase students' academic performance and engagement and help them make more social connections than standard course settings. However, the costs to use an educational game design with efficient delivery of the game/course plan can be problematic. Our first objective was to evaluate the…