Browsing by Subject "Qualitative case study"

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    The Impacts of Asynchronous Video Reflection on Perceived Learner Social Presence
    (2015-12) Koivula, Matti
    This dissertation examined how an asynchronous video reflection tool impacted learners’ perception of social presence and their feeling of community in an online learning environment. More than ever before learning in postsecondary education takes place online through computer mediated communication, as almost all colleges and universities offer some of their courses online (Moore & Kearsley, 2012). There are many benefits of online learning (Graham, 2006; Griffiths & Graham, 2009b; Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 2001), but there are problems as well. One of the problems students can have while learning online is the feeling of isolation and the lack social presence with others (Ali & Leeds, 2009; Borup, West, & Graham, 2012; Rovai, 2002). To help mediate this problem, instructors use different online technologies that encourage learners to communicate in a variety of ways, including through video and visual media. There are many video-based tools available and many are newly in development; this study examines one in particular called Flipgrid that can be used by instructors and students to create and share video-based reflections on course content. The purpose of this study is to help online instructors, instructional designers and educational app developers find new ways of enhancing or increasing social presence for their target audience by exploring the following research questions: (1) How does an asynchronous video reflection tool impact students’ perception of social presence in an online class? (2) How does seeing classmates’ video recordings influence students’ feeling of community in an online class? And (3) How does creating video recordings influence students’ feeling of community in an online class? This interpretive case study (Stake, 1995) was informed by the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) and utilized qualitative methods for data collection and inductive data analysis to understand the phenomenon of social presence and how learners experienced it while using an asynchronous video reflection tool. Data was collected from students from five separate undergraduate courses that took place fully online. Analysis of qualitative surveys, focus group, and individual interviews revealed three themes from the data: familiarization, authenticity, and distractions. Participants expressed that getting to know classmates by seeing and hearing them in an online course was important to them, and authentic videos in which students shared personal stories to support their points of views were highly valued. There were also distracting elements, like privacy concerns and the feeling of being rushed while doing recording, that negatively impacted the experience of recording and watching video reflections. Based on the findings of this study, a refined definition of social presence is proposed.
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    Using collaboration for curriculum change in accounting higher education
    (2013-06) Pickering, Beth Marie
    This qualitative, descriptive case study researched the collaborative curriculum development process in accounting higher education. This study was needed because accounting education, as a professional program, needs to be continually reviewed and updated in order to keep abreast of changes in the business field. This content is developed through the curriculum development process. Yet education has seen hiring freezes and budget cuts, thus there is a shortage of money and personnel for revising or developing needed accounting programs in response to these changes, and one way to meet these shortages is for educational institutions to collaborate. While there were studies about collaboration and studies of curriculum development, there were no studies that combined both within the environment of accounting higher education. The research question was `What does it mean to participate in the accounting curriculum development process in a collaborative environment?' The study sought to better understand how said process functions in a collaborative environment by studying four cases where that process was undertaken in three post-secondary educational institutions. From document analysis and participant interviews, the data were analyzed and six themes were discussed: recognizing the role of a driver of the collaboration, recognizing the expertise of other participants, having ongoing communication between the participants, forming partnerships by managing participants' expectations, doing the necessary research ahead of time, and having additional education of students and teachers who were going to be in the shared courses. In some cases, the collaboration resulted in shared courses which increased students' exposure to professional's expert knowledge, to students with backgrounds other than accounting, and to different career possibilities. The collaborations also exposed issues, such as the differences of opinions by instructors of shared courses when it came to what was taught in the classroom and the need of having more than one driver of the collaboration. By examining these cases, results can then be disseminated to others searching for assistance in implementing their own collaborative curriculum development process. Because the more we know about using collaboration for curriculum change in accounting higher education, the better we can plan for it in the future.