Vitrual Interactivity: Design Factors Affecting Student Satisfaction and Perceived Learning in Asynchronous Online Courses

This paper looks at factors affecting student satisfaction with and perceived learning from asynchronous online learning. It reports on an empirical investigation that explored relationships between student perceptions and course design factors in seventythree SUNY Learning Network courses in the spring, 1999 semester. The study found that three, and only three, general factors – clarity of design, interaction with instructors, and active discussion among course participants –significantly influenced students’ satisfaction and perceived learning. Such findings are related to various kinds of interactivity and a “community of inquiry” model of online learning. Asynchronous online courses have important features in common. Kearsley (2000), for example, asserts that the virtual classroom is a “unique social context, much different from that of a regular classroom.” On the other hand, online classes can be as various as face-to-face classes. Indeed, researchers have argued that the structure (Romiszowski & Cheng, 1992), transparency (Eastmond, 1995), and communication potential (Irani, 1998) of course designs heavily impact students’ satisfaction, learning, and retention in online courses. This paper investigates these and other design factors in the unique environment of asynchronous online learning in terms of their relationships to student satisfaction and perceived learning in online courses. It relates these empirical findings to notions of interactivity and a “community of inquiry” model of online learning.