Abstract:

Expanding on previous research, this project examines student engagement with the core research methods classes in an undergraduate sociology program. The online research methods courses—one quantitative and the second qualitative—along with the senior seminar class were recently redesigned. The courses were redesigned to allow students repeated exposure to salient issues and to give them the opportunity to slowly build their work up to the empirical research paper required in the capstone course, the senior seminar. Using student login data obtained from the Learning Management System (LMS) at a four-year private educational institution, the relationship between student engagement with course content and final grade will be assessed. The available data includes the number of student logins to the LMS, the areas where students interact within a course offering, and the amount of time spent in the course in the online environment. While the available data must serve as a somewhat crude proxy This presentation expands on research presented at this conference last year which addressed only one course.

Keywords:

Student engagement, online education, grades.