Does professional development for online instruction improve student course outcomes?

IF 6.4 1区教育学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Internet and Higher Education Pub Date : 2025-01-19 DOI:10.1016/j.iheduc.2025.100993

Xuehan Zhou , Qiujie Li , Di Xu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

With the fast expansion of online learning in higher education, institutions have increasingly offered and mandated faculty professional development (PD) programs focused on online instruction. However, the extent to which these PD programs indeed lead to improved students' online course performance remains largely unknown. This paper used a rigorous quasi-experimental approach to estimate the impact of a PD program on student online course performance at a large community college using a dataset that includes more than 370,000 online course enrollments taught by close to 900 instructors. The analyses yielded robust, nonsignificant estimates for the PD program on both online course persistence and course grades. Further qualitative analysis of the courses taught by PD participants indicated that instructors' integration of elements covered by the PD training into their subsequent teaching was fairly limited, highlighting the need for ongoing support to help instructors incorporate recommended practices into instruction.

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来源期刊

Internet and Higher Education EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH-

CiteScore

19.30

自引率

4.70%

发文量

审稿时长

40 days

期刊介绍： The Internet and Higher Education is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal focused on contemporary issues and future trends in online learning, teaching, and administration within post-secondary education. It welcomes contributions from diverse academic disciplines worldwide and provides a platform for theory papers, research studies, critical essays, editorials, reviews, case studies, and social commentary.