Learning Online: A Dialogue Among Professor and Doctoral Students and Suggestions for Improving Online Instruction

The purpose of this study is to examine those aspects of online learning that are identified as effective or detrimental in online learning in a cohort-based doctoral program in a School of Education and Social Sciences. The researchers are comprised of four online doctoral students and a professor at a medium university in the Northeast. These four students are members of the first cohort of doctoral students who began their three- year program in the summer of 2016 and will graduate in May, 2019. The professor taught three courses to this cohort after having transformed these courses from a traditional to an online format. A focus group will then be conducted among these five participant-researchers to identify what practices they found to be effective or detrimental to learning in an online environment. Based on the findings of this focus group, a questionnaire will then then be developed and sent electronically to the other graduates of this first cohort as well as to the cohort that is scheduled to graduate in May, 2020. IRB approval will be required to conduct this study