This sequential mixed method aimed to understand students' perspectives of their instructor's capability of humanizing the synchrotron online learning format. Recognizing the impact of humanizing the synchrotron online learning format will aid EL teachers, administrators, and students in considering a holistic plan for improving the synchrotron…

Although online course enrollments have increased over the past two decades (Berry, 2017), low retention rates persist (Muilenburg & Berge, 2005; Ng, 2019) due to students feeling isolated and a lack of social connection with their instructor and classmates (Baxter, 2012; Lowenthal, 2009; Pinsk et al., 2014). High dropout rates have been…

While enrollment has been declining across higher education over the last decade, online education is one sector consistently enjoying enrollment gains, making its success indispensable to many institutions. Transactional distance theory has been used to study the experiences of online students and faculty and asserts that dialogue reduces the…

This exploratory case study aimed to understand how the sudden and abrupt transition to distance education due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic of 2020 highlighted the vast differences in levels of readiness for adopting distance education among the public-school districts throughout the State of Connecticut. It explores the reasons behind the…

Universities have increased the number of fully or partially online courses they offer to meet students' family, work-life, and academic needs. As a result of this shift, the HyFlex learning paradigm, which provides hybrid and flexible learning options, has gained traction in academia in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the…

Drawing on a feminist poststructural theoretical framework, this study examined how students perform gender in the online classroom and how that performance impacts their understanding of and navigation of gendered power structures. There is a scarcity of feminist poststructural research in online learning; most online learning research relies on…

In this qualitative phenomenological research study, I examined 10 emergency medical service instructors from multiple regions in Florida. It was designed to understand the use of hybrid learning and the various areas that hybrid learning affects. I examined how hybrid learning, in conjunction with traditional education, can be performed in both a…

Many colleges and universities are moving towards online learning as it increases access to education and aid in managing the growing enrollment. Students' engagement in schools has been a growing concern for academic institutes especially in today's time where online learning is prominent. This study explores instructor's perspective on the…

High schools sought to meet the demands of physical distancing and movement restrictions due to COVID-19. Given this unexpected situation, the researcher designed a quasi-experimental ex-post facto study to compare student outcomes from the Pennsylvania Keystone Examinations for Biology and Literature delivered in face-to-face (F2F) and virtual…

During the Spring 2020 semester, all fifty states in the United States closed schools from in-person instruction due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. When the two Upstate South Carolina school districts in this study reopened in the Fall of 2020, they gave families the option of allowing students to attend newly developed virtual schools which…

The rising popularity of online learning and the global pandemic COVID-19 sped up the use of synchronous online teaching modality in HEIs worldwide. But unsatisfactory learning experiences and isolation were prominent and commonly perceived by learners. The study aimed to examine students' sense of belonging in a synchronous online learning…

The following study was framed around a simple question: when a group of people is engaged in video conferencing, "what sort of things can they do to improve their group dynamics?" This is an important question for current and future educational practice because web-based video conferencing has increasingly become an important tool for…

There are many components contributing to academically dishonest behaviors and with improvements in technology, methods for cheating have expanded to web-based classrooms. This study focuses on academically dishonest behaviors in online and face-to-face (F2F) course formats in an attempt to better understand the impact of cheating in these two…

Online learning environments have been embraced by many institutions, faculty, and students as a viable adult learning option to the traditional face-to-face learning environment. As this mode of delivery for instruction continues to grow in acceptance, it is important to understand the characteristics of adult learners, the historical progression…

The number of online courses in higher education is on the rise; however, empirical evidence elucidating best practices for synchronous online instruction is needed to implement these courses. The purpose of this dissertation was to perform a mixed-method investigation into the relationships between instructor prompt and student engagement in 5…