LEARNER SATISFACTION WHEN APPLYING AN INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL IN E-LEARNING - An Experimental Study

摘要

This paper presents the results regarding the satisfaction of learners attending a course under the following instructional conditions: traditional face-to-face classroom, distance learning without an instructional model, having only virtualized the teaching contents used in face-to-face classrooms; and distance learning with an instructional model. The courses on which the experiments were run are related to information and communications technologies. Specifically, we present in this paper the results for a Java programming course taught to information technology specialists under the above three instructional conditions. The course was originally designed for classroom attendance. Later, with the aim of reducing student travel expenses, all the course teaching content was virtualized (distance learning without an instructional model). And the course was designed to simulate face-to-face classroom teaching via web and videoconferencing. In view of the sharp drop in learner satisfaction with this second teaching mode, we adopted an instructional model to systematize the distance course design and teaching process. The results suggest that learner satisfaction in this study is slightly higher among students attending the distance course applying the instructional model than for students taking the traditional face-to-face classroom course and greater in both cases than among students enrolled in distance learning without an instructional model for the course.