Research Paper Example on Technology Revolutionizing American Education: Online Courses

Introduction

The world is changing due to the rapid advancement in the technology world. As a result of fast growth, technology has now become part of the American people. In the education sector, technology has made several improvements. One notable improvement is that through technology, universities can now offer online courses to their students. With distant classes, universities and colleges can now increase their revenues by accommodating more students. The universities also save on space since the students do not have to be in their facilities physically. The journey of developing online courses started with the use of postal mail. Students would send their work to their teachers through the mail. However, this method did not provide students with the opportunity to respond to their tutors whenever they needed more explanation to understand a particular concept. As technology continued to grow, distance learners took advantage of electronic communication methods like radio and television. Distant learning revolutionized when computers were developed. Students could not only communicate with their tutors but with fellow students through the Internet. Nowadays, technologies like video conferencing, audio, and cell phones have made distance very easy to use and accessible among significant universities all over the world. Technology continues to advance; therefore, the education sector will have to adapt to more changes in the technological world.

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Background Information

According to Statista, more than 300 million people in the United States used the internet in 2018, making it among the countries with a majority of internet users (2019). Out of 90 percent of the adults in the U.S. admitted that they use the internet. With the high penetration rates of internet services, the country is in an excellent position to accommodate distant learners. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 6,932,074 students enrolled for online courses in September 2018 for degree courses. The increase of students willing to take online courses can be credited to the lower tuition fees in distance learning than traditional face-to-face learning in classrooms.

Students have a choice to choose between traditional methods of learning and advanced online courses. Traditional methods mainly include face to face interactions between the students and their tutors. In this case, students listen to their teachers, and they have to write down notes in classes. Web-facilitated learning encourages students to use the internet for more information after face-to-face interaction with the instructor. Hybrid courses combine both online delivery of information and face to face interaction with the tutor. Online courses purely involve the use of distance learning for education. The students do not have any face to face interaction with their instructors.

With the more students willing to take online courses, universities and colleges are faced with the challenge of making sure that they provide their students with quality education online. Online courses have had to be more innovative to increase the interactions between students and their teachers. Excellent communication between students themselves and with their tutors is necessary for online courses to be successful (Lee & Lesisa, 2017). However, in most cases, online courses have had an adverse reaction from most teachers as they consider face to face interactions more productive. However, the new technological wave cannot be stopped, and all the players in education will have to welcome the use of technology in the education sector and other economic and social developments.

Literature Review

Distant learning is expected to grow even further in the future. Students who prefer online classes consider several factors that motivate them to take their courses online. Students have certain expectations and attitudes towards traditional or online courses. These expectations and beliefs affect the students’ preferred form of deliverance (Wettergren, 2012). Students' motivation is an essential factor in the process of learning. The motivation can either be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the self-driven motivation of an individual in pursuing something to its completion. In comparison, extrinsic motivation is driven by external factors like saving money and time.

Online courses are appropriate to students who may have other responsibilities besides studying like work or family obligations. Online classes allow their students to study during class time and give students the chance to discuss things learned in class even after class. Students are given a convention where they can review and reflect on what was learned in their classes whenever available (Lee & Lesisa, 2017). The forums also provide the students with a chance to have social interactions, which is essential in education.

Wettergren had carried out a study on why some students prefer taking online classes instead of assuming traditional courses (2012). Some students believe that online classes are not beneficial to them due to the lack of direct interaction with their instructors. Although online classes are cheaper and more appropriate to some people, some students still preferred the traditional methods of learning. An important issue raised was the quality of education through distance learning. A majority of students preferred online classes due to financial reasons (Lapsley et al., 2008). A good number of students also preferred taking online courses because of the flexibility of distance learning. Their physical presence is not required in their respective schools, allowing them to do other things while studying.

Rationale for the Study

The demand for distant learning is increasing at a fast rate. The high demand for online classes means that universities have to enroll more students for distance learning programs. Schools now offer more courses through online classes in an attempt to compete with other schools. However, most instructors are only trained in educating their students in classrooms; thus, online programs are new to them. That raises the question of the quality of online classes when compared to traditional courses.

Previous research by Lapsley et al. (2008) compared online courses to traditional courses. The study showed that the faculty did not have enough skills in teaching online courses; thus, regular classes were much better in terms of quality. The instructors also lacked enough support from the universities' administration to improve their services to students. However, the research did not determine what motivated the students to pursue online courses despite these setbacks.

The study will focus on the factors that motivate students to choose online courses rather than traditional courses. The motivation to take distance learning courses can either be intrinsic or extrinsic. To better understand why students want online courses, it is also important to scrutinize the relationship between the motivation to take traditional classes and the motivation to take online courses. The study formulated the research question: What factors make students take online courses at the university? To what extent do these motivation factors affect their choice to take an online course rather than the traditional learning style?

The study is critical because it will help universities make informed decisions on how to improve students' online learning experience. The advancements in technology have increased the rate at which things are changing in the education sector. Instructors are concerned by the rate at which the demand for online courses is growing. A majority of instructors learned how to educate their students through traditional face-to-face interaction with their students. Because of the new wave of technological advancements, they have to sharpen their skills in creating online platforms for their students.

Institutions of higher educations have to compete on offering online courses to willing students. As a result, these institutions have increased the number of online classes to enroll more students. Increasing the number of students means that institutions of higher education have to expand their workforce. As a result, the facilities increase the number of instructors without training them properly to teach online courses. Besides the standard qualifications as teachers, online instructors need additional skills in online teaching to make them more productive. Therefore, the overall quality of education offered through online courses is affected negatively.

Institutions of higher education need to understand what motivates students to pursue online courses instead of traditional face-to-face courses. With an excellent understanding of students' motivation, universities will be able to formulate online courses that best suit their students. The study will also explore the challenges that students face when studying online; thus, their tutors will be able to improve their services, and the students will have a better experience with their online courses.

Method

The study's main aim was to predict the main drive behind the students' intention to take online courses (dependent variable) based on the outcome of other independent variables on forecasting the students' objective when choosing an online course. Measuring the motivation of someone to do something cannot be done through mere observation. Motivation can be measured by studying a person's cognitive responses, such as perceptions and beliefs. The most appropriate method of observing another person's perceptions and attitudes is through the survey research method. Previous research on online courses had also used a survey methodology to collect data; it would be an effective method.

In order to examine students' motivation, the study needed to pick a higher education university. The selection of an appropriate higher education facility was aimed at a university with a large number of students taking both online classes and traditional classes. The university chosen had a total population of 9,000 students and about 7,500 faculty. Out of the total number of students, 200 of them studied full time in the campus. Nearly three-quarters of the students' total population were undergraduates while the rest were postgraduate students doing either masters or doctorate courses. Sixty percent of the students were male, and 40 percent were female. A majority of the students were white (59 percent). Twenty-five percent were African American, 6 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent of them were Asian. The rest of the school's population identified with more than one race or preferred to remain unidentified. The university comprises five significant colleges. Students in the school of the law were 19 percent, college of humanities and social sciences 22 percent, collage of economics 18 percent, college of business studies 20 percent, and finally, college of education was 21 percent.

The university's administration has been increasing the number of courses offered online in the past three years. Therefore, it served the purpose of the research entirely since the research also wanted to capture why universities were increasing the online courses and how effective they offered their services to online students. The study wanted to use a sample of 1000 students in the study. Therefore the most appropriate sampling method was the use of a stratified random sampling method...