Effects of Instructor Engagement on Student Use of a Course Management System

Abstract

College campuses are rapidly adopting Course Management Systems (CMS) such as Moodle and Sakai for undergraduate instruction. These online support systems offer the potential to extend student-instructor interaction beyond the classroom, yet little is known about the effects of instructor engagement on student use.This study evaluates the extent to which instructor use of a CMS affects student use and whether increased student use results in improved academic performance. Participants in two intact courses taught by the same instructor used course resources available on Moodle during an academic quarter. Levels of online course support provided by the instructor were compared with levels of student use. Levels of student use were then compared with academic performance. In this study, we hypothesize that instructor engagement with a CMS affects how students use the system and that this use relates to academic performance.