International Journal of Education and Development using ICT

International Journal of Education and Development using ICT > Vol. 20, No. 1 (2024)

“Virtual-Togethering!” Principles for Mitigating Apathy in Graduate Courses

Sandria S Stephenson, Georgia College & State University
Zeynep A Kelani, Kennesaw State University

Abstract
The purpose of the study is to understand which of the seven principles by Arthur W. Chickering & Zelda Gamson (1987) are amenable to graduate students in a virtual or other online learning environment, and to evaluate the external validity of the seven principles in the context of online teaching. It concludes with a Hierarchical Principles Model, which repurposes these seven principles for faculty to use as a best practice technique to mitigate apathy in virtual masters’ courses. The data are based on a survey of students pursuing graduate courses online. Among the seven principles, encouraging student-faculty interaction is perceived to be the most effective for these participants. They also suggest prompt feedback was the most appealing and beneficial. They perceived communicating high expectations was the least appealing principle, while encouraging student-student interaction created the most hindrance to online learning. Moreover, from a generic perspective, managing their own study time and flexibility is what students liked best about virtual learning. What they found least effective is their perceived limited communication or interaction with faculty. Furthermore, the findings suggest online graduate students, while perceived to be non-traditional, still expect faculty to be constantly engaged online. Although Chickering & Gamson did not give a hierarchical arrangement to their seven principles, the results and efficacy of this study suggests that when adopted to online learning for masters’ students, the principles need to be reordered in a Hierarchical Principles Model, which we developed to be used as a best practice approach for online teaching and learning in masters’ courses.

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