A Study on the Predictors of Success and Satisfaction in an Online Higher Education Program in Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the predictors of success and satisfaction in an undergraduate distance education ELL degree program in Turkey. In this study, the independent variables are instructor support, student interaction and collaboration, personal relevance, authentic learning, active learning, and student autonomy and the dependent variables are student success and student satisfaction. The participants were 85 distance education students enrolled at the English Language and Literature Distance Education Program at Karabük University. In order to collect data, Education Learning Environment Survey (DELES), developed and validated by Walker and Fraser (2003), was used. This survey includes six psycho-social scales: 1) instructor support, 2) student interaction and collaboration, 3) personal relevance, 4) authentic learning, 5) active learning, and 6) student autonomy. In order to ascertain the relation between the variables, a correlation analysis was carried out. A moderate level of correlation was observed among the variables of the study. In addition, two regression tests were administered in order to measure the influence of the independent variables on both success and satisfaction. The results indicate that the predictors of student satisfaction are instructor support, authentic learning, and personal relevance, whereas the only strong predictor of academic success was authentic learning.

Students’ Utilization of Distance Learning through an Interventional Online Module Based on Moore Transactional Distance Theory

“…This issue is very important because the absence of instructor support would create substantial problems regarding distance education for the majority of students. Evidence for this is provided by Kirmizi (2014), who found a modest level of association between interaction and student collaboration, active learning, student autonomy, personal relevance, educator support and authentic learning.…”

Effect of E-learning on Management Undergraduates’ Academic Success during COVID-19: A Study at Non-state Universities in Sri Lanka

“…The student satisfaction is the level of happiness the student experiences to themselves from online education [ 69 ]. [ 70 ] studied on the relationship between the student satisfaction and the academic achievement and found that a positive correlation exists between the two variables. The author further elaborated that the cultural variations affect the learners' satisfactions which ultimately affects the achievement.…”

Contribution of academic supervision to vocational students’ learning readiness

“…Learning motivation is related to the student's attitude toward learning. Motivation is one of the main factors influencing the student's success [32] and comfortable learning [33]. As one of the learner's readiness aspects, motivation plays a significant role in measuring the student's academic satisfaction and achievement [32].…”

“…Motivation is one of the main factors influencing the student's success [32] and comfortable learning [33]. As one of the learner's readiness aspects, motivation plays a significant role in measuring the student's academic satisfaction and achievement [32]. Self-efficacy is the student's ability to demonstrate learning skills.…”