Online Student Satisfaction: An Examination of Preference, Asynchronous Course Elements and Collaboration Among Online Students

Online courses provide students the opportunity and flexibility to attend college courses on their own schedule and within the comforts of their own home. While most enjoy the flexibility offered by this type of course delivery method and the quality between distance (online) and face-to-face courses being relatively equal, the question has been raised about the student satisfaction in online or hybrid courses (online courses containing synchronous elements). This paper seeks to explore student satisfaction toward online courses through the lens of preference to delivery method, the impact of asynchronous instruction on satisfaction and the role of rapport/ collaboration between students in an online environment. To fully understand the impact that these aspects have on student satisfaction, a survey was constructed and distributed to the entire student population of the Learning Technologies department at a public institution of higher learning in Texas. As an added dimension to the results obtained by the survey, interviews were held with a subsection of the survey participants to further explore the elements that impact their satisfaction towards online courses.