Motivating Students in Online Courses: Designing for Dialogue and Social Presence

This thesis is based on a case study of a 2018 Masters Level Introductory Research Methods course taught online to 32 students. The purpose of the study was to determine what motivates students to engage in online learning environments. This exploratory mixed-methods study involved 14 students volunteering to complete a survey, and six of those students agreeing to a follow up interview. Both the survey and the interview asked students to comment on aspects of the social and built environment of the course, with specific attention paid to the role of video and text-based discussions in motivating student to engage in the course. Findings suggest that text-based forums, due to built design as well as lack of visual social cues, were less effective than video-based interactions in terms of creating social presence and the type of dialogue that led to increased student perceptions of learning.M.A