Student Alienation, Academic Achievement, and WebCT Use

The current investigation sought to understand the relationships between college student alienation, academic achievement, and use of WebCT. Fifty-three students enrolled in an undergraduate educational psychology course provided three types of data: 1) self-rating of eight Likert scale alienation items, 2) academic achievement measured with four types of multiple choice questions evaluating mastery of course content, and 3) use of WebCT defined as total number of Hits, Articles Posted, and Articles Read. Findings suggest that peer alienation was associated with increased WebCT use; learning alienation and course alienation were associated with low WebCT use. Learning alienation demonstrated an inverse relation to academic achievement. In most cases, significant predictive relationships between academic achievement and student use of WebCT were curvilinear.