A Study On The Learning Experience Of Online Courses For M.Ed.Students

With the rapid development of information technology,online education has been widely concerned by scholars at home and abroad in recent years.As a powerful supplement to traditional education forms,online education is not limited by time and space and provides great convenience for learners and educators.During the Covid-19 pandemic,universities generally tried the mode of online teaching,and various problems in online course learning were also studied and discussed by many scholars.However,from the perspective of research subjects,college students are the main research subjects of online courses,and the research on online learning for M.Ed.students is relatively scarce.M.Ed.students are one of the main forces of normal education,and its training status is directly related to the construction of the training system of pre-service teachers.In the information age,online education has become an important part of higher education,it is thus of practical significance to carry out in-depth research on online learning for M.Ed.students.Based on this background,this study selected 49 full-time M.Ed.students from a normal university in China as research subjects,aiming to understand their learning experience of the four-month online course during the epidemic and answer the following research questions:1.What is the overall learning experience of online courses and the learning experience of each dimension for M.Ed.students?2.What are the main factors that affect M.Ed.students’ learning experience of online courses?This study adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods.First,a questionnaire survey is conducted to comprehensively understand the online learning experience of M.Ed.students in eight dimensions:generic skills,learning resources,clear goals,good teaching,learning tasks and assessment,intellectual motivation,student support and learning community.The questionnaires were distributed immediately after the online courses ended and the data were analyzed using SPSS software.Subsequently,six M.Ed.students were selected for interviews to supplement the data obtained from the questionnaire survey and to make a deep analysis of the main factors affecting M.Ed.students’ learning experience of online courses.Through questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview,the main findings of the research are summarized as follows:First of all,M.Ed.students have a good overall learning experience of online courses.Specifically,among the eight dimensions of learning experience,students have the best experience of learning community and student support,good experience of generic skills,learning resources and good teaching,but the experience of clear goals,intellectual motivation,learning tasks and assessment is moderate.Second,the flexibility and convenience of online learning and the relaxed atmosphere of online discussion are the main contributing factors that affect M.Ed.students’ online learning experience.The main restricting factors include students’ low expectations of online courses,lack of teacher support and teacher’s feedback.This study presents the various kinds of learning experience of online courses from the perspective of students and explores the main factors that affect the learning experience,which has certain reference significance to promote the improvement of online learning efficiency of M.Ed.students and the smooth implementation of future online education for teacher educators.