Learner Satisfaction in a Collaborative Online Learning Environment

An investigation of learners’ satisfaction in an online learning environment can lead to improvement in designing of an online course or its task, and gives the course facilitator the opportunity to re-focus computer integrated learning environment. In this paper, five key areas of online learning environments, vis. peer interaction, tutor support, online task, technology support, and knowledge acquired will be examined in order to calibrate learner satisfaction. Learners’ satisfaction for a course called “Learning Skills for Open and Distance Learners” within online discussion forum in Open University Malaysia’s learning management system will be the focus of this study. Research data is collected via questionnaire and learners reflection of their learning in the online forum. It is hope that the model shared in this paper for an effective collaborative online learning, will provide insights to the course facilitators to create an interactive and deep learning environment. (Author's abstract