An Exploration of African American Students’ Attitudes Toward Online Learning

Abstract

The current work presents exploratory research findings concerning African American students’ attitudes toward online learning. The Online Tutoring Attitudes Scale (OTAS; Graff, 2003) was administered to 124 African American students in a positive youth development program. Findings suggest that African American students’ attitudes toward computers are inconsistent with their attitudes toward online learning. African American students reported positive attitudes toward computers; however, their attitudes reflected anxiety, lack of confidence, and little use for online learning experiences. Implications of this research are relevant to educational interventions, academic achievement, and technological advancement with respect to underrepresented populations.

Relationships Between Minority Students Online Learning Experiences and Academic Performance

“…Results from the same study revealed that minority students' beliefs about their racial identity may be connected to their future educational attainment. Okwumabua, Walker, Hu, and Watson (2011) observed that while the majority of African-American students had positive attitudes toward computers, a significant number did not report high levels of confidence in working online. Other studies such as Ibarra (2000) and Smith and Ayers (2006) found that student groups with a high-context culture, such as Latino students, experienced disadvantages in a web-based learning environment designed with a low-context culture.…”

“…As indicated in the literature review, Okwumabua et al (2011) stated that minority students tend to display differently in attitudinal and behavioral aspects of online learning. Second, inequities develop that arise from dominant cultural values embodied in teaching materials and methods (e.g., Gunawardena et al, 2003) and miscommunication among students in online interactions arising from cultural difference (e.g., Wong & Trinidad, 2004).…”

Online collaborative learning activities: The perspectives of minority graduate students

“…Thus, as an increasing number of minority students continue to enroll in online education (Ashong & Commander, 2012;Petersen, 2015), it is imperative that researchers examine the extent to which instructional strategies such as collaborative learning-well documented in the research literature as effective for the general online student population-works effectively for culturally diverse students. This is particularly important because several studies have reported that instructors of online courses often fail to recognize and address the cultural diversity of their learners in the online learning environments (e.g., Adeoye & Wentling, 2007;Gunawardena, Layne, & Frechette, 2012;Mushtaha & Troyer, 2007;Rogers, Graham & Mayes, 2007), and results from some studies seem to suggest that students from diverse cultural backgrounds exhibit poor leadership skills in leading online discussion (Okwumabua, Walker, Hu, & Watson, 2011), as well as experience challenges in participating online collaborative learning activities (Du & Anderson, 2003). The purpose of this study, therefore, was to investigate the perceptions of culturally diverse graduate students about online collaborative learning activities.…”

A Literature Review and Directions for Future Research on International Student Perceptions of Online versus Face-to-Face Education: Program-centered Characteristics

“…Previous studies examined differences across cultures (Cronje, 2011;Chew & Yee, 2015;Grandon et al, 2005;Li & Kirkup, 2005;Popov et al, 2012;Popov, Noroozi, Barrett, Biemans, Teasley, Slof & Mulder 2014;Zhu, Valcke & Schellens., 2009) and within cultures (Adler et al, 2001;Chase et al, 2002;Hamdan, 2014;Okwumabua, Walker, Hu & Watson, 2010). In a recent cross-cultural comparison between Malaysian and Australian students, no significant differences in students' perceptions existed on computer usage, lecturer support, equity, student interaction and collaboration (Chew & Yee, 2015).…”