This article reports on a qualitative study which explored online student engagement experiences in a higher education institution. There are very few studies providing in-depth perspectives on the engagement experiences of online students. The project adopted a case study approach, following 24 online students over one academic year. The setting for the study was an undergraduate online Humanities programme at Dublin City University. The research question for the study was: What themes are central to online student engagement experiences? Data was collected from participant-generated learning portfolios and semi-structured interviews and analysed following a data-led thematic approach. The five central themes that make up the study’s findings highlight key issues of students’ sense of community, their support networks, balancing study with life, confidence, and their learning approaches. The findings of this study indicate that successful online student engagement was influenced by a number of psychosocial factors such as peer community, an engaging online teacher, and confidence and by structural factors such as lifeload and course design. One limitation of the study is that it is a relatively small, qualitative study, its findings provide insights into how online degrees can support online students to achieve successful and engaging learning experiences.

中文翻译：

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平衡之举：了解在线学生参与体验的窗口

本文报告了一项定性研究，该研究探索了高等教育机构中的在线学生参与体验。很少有研究对在线学生的参与体验提供深入的观点。该项目采用案例研究方法，跟踪 24 名在线学生超过一学年。该研究的背景是都柏林城市大学的本科在线人文课程。该研究的研究问题是：哪些主题是在线学生参与体验的核心？从参与者生成的学习组合和半结构化访谈中收集数据，并按照数据主导的主题方法进行分析。构成研究结果的五个中心主题突出了学生的社区意识、他们的支持网络、平衡学习与生活、信心，以及他们的学习方法。这项研究的结果表明，成功的在线学生参与受到许多社会心理因素的影响，如同伴社区、参与的在线教师和信心，以及生活负荷和课程设计等结构性因素。该研究的一个局限性在于，它是一项相对较小的定性研究，其发现提供了有关在线学位如何支持在线学生获得成功和引人入胜的学习体验的见解。