Self-Directed Online Learning Modules: Students’ Behaviours and Experiences

Abstract

Academic programs are experiencing pressure to produce efficiencies in education by incorporating online learning. Simply transplanting a text-based resource to an online setting by itself does not necessarily provide an effective online learning environment. In collaboration with clinical educators, our academic team constructed an online learning activity designed to reinforce allied health student knowledge of pharmacology. However, anecdotal reports from students entering the clinical environment indicated poor engagement with the online resources. These reports prompted the need for a method of formal analysis of student engagement and insights into student preferences and behaviours with online learning. Through auditing online usage data and survey analysis, our study determines a set of practical recommendations for the design of online resources, and their implementation, in order optimise their utilization and educational value.

Keywords

• e-Learning
• pedagogy
• web-based
• technology
• self-directed