What Types of Online Facilitation Do Students Need

The purpose of this study is to investigate facilitation in an online learning environment. The types of facilitation are examined using distance course students as subjects. Students' characteristics such as prior experience in distance courses, demographic attributes such as age, gender, and grades are incorporated as variables to explore their relationships with facilitation. This study first identifies major types of online facilitation that students requested in a Web-based course. It then inspects whether students with different characteristics requested different types of online facilitation. Finally, the study examines whether the amount of messages requesting online facilitations is associated with learning achievement. Participants were 29 college students in a Web-based course at a state university. The course requires students to actively participate in online activities and all course assignments are submitted as electronic files via the course site. Research data were the threaded messages that were posted by students, the instructor, and the TA in the designated areas in the course site. Threaded messages posted through entire semester were collected. Five types of online facilitation were identified. Findings and implications of findings regarding the relationships among types of online facilitation, student characteristics, and learning achievement are discussed. It was found that students requested more facilitation in assignments and grade criteria, and in network access. Different student characteristics were found to prefer different types of facilitation. Implications of this study for Web-based course design and teaching was then suggested. (Author) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. What Types of Online Facilitation Do Students Need? Shujen L. Chang Florida State University Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate facilitation in an online learning environment. The types of facilitation are examined using distance course students as subjects. Students' characteristics such as prior experience in distance courses, demographic attributes such as age, gender, and grades are incorporated as variables to explore their relationships with facilitation. This study first identifies major types of online facilitation that students requested in a web-based course. Then this study inspects whether students with different characteristics requested different types of online facilitation. Finally this study examines whether the amount of message requesting online facilitation is associated with learning achievement. The participants of this study were 29 college students in a web-based course at a state university. The course requires students to actively participate in online activities and all course assignments are submitted as electronic files via the course site. Research data are the threaded messages that were posted by students, the instructor, and the TA in the designated areas in the course site. Threaded messages posted through entire semester are collected. Five types of online facilitation were identified in this study. Findings and implications of findings regarding the relationships among types of online facilitation, student characteristics, and learning achievement were discussed. It was found that students requested more facilitation in assignments and grade criteria, and in network access. Different student characteristics were found to prefer different types of facilitation. Implication of this study for web-based course design and teaching was then suggested.