Being Nontraditional and Learning Online: Assessing the Psychosocial Learning Environments, Self-Efficacy, and Affective Outcomes Among College Student Groups

The study compared traditional and nontraditional students’ attitudes about the psychosocial learning environment and their influence on self-efficacy, enjoyment of online learning, and student satisfaction by using Moos’ (1979) Model of Environmental and Personal Variables and the three dimensions of social climate as its theoretical framework. Traditional and nontraditional students were selected based on known differences between their personal characteristics/traits. A total of 151 undergraduate students taking online classes at a university in the southeastern United States participated in the online quantitative pretest/posttest. The findings revealed that nontraditional students preferred less student interaction and collaboration and more asynchronicity than traditional students. Nontraditional students also had a higher degree of enjoyment of online learning and a higher satisfaction with the degree of asynchronicity in their online courses compared to traditional students. Additionally, the study found significant and positive associations between academic self-efficacy and psychosocial learning environment variables that include teacher support, student interaction and collaboration, authentic learning, student autonomy, equity, asynchronicity, computer use, and personal relevance. There were also significant and positive associations between online self-efficacy and student autonomy. The study also indicated significant and positive associations between enjoyment of online learning and psychosocial learning environment variables that include computer use, authentic learning, asynchronicity, teacher support, personal relevance, and asynchronicity. Last, there were significant and positive associations between self-efficacy and enjoyment of online learning