The relationship between interactivity in online distance education courses and course quality as measured by student satisfaction

The increased use of online education has raised questions about the quality of the educational experience for learners because it lacks the personal face-to-face interaction that has been associated with the traditional face-to-face classroom. The issue of instructor-learner and learner-learner interaction is central to this debate and has been identified as an important area of research need. This study examined the relationship between various interactivity factors involving instructor-student and student-student interaction and course quality where quality was measured by student satisfaction. A Web-based survey was completed by 101 students taking primarily asynchronous online courses in the health professions at two different schools using WebCT or eCollege as the course delivery platform. In addition, eight former students at one school were interviewed over the telephone about their experiences taking online courses.; Eleven course satisfaction items in the survey were reduced by factor analysis to the following three quality components: satisfaction with student-student interaction, satisfaction with instructor-student interaction and satisfaction with the course. The study found 26 interactivity items in the survey were significantly related to one or more of the three quality components using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient at an alpha of 0.05. Increasing the amount of interaction was also found to be significantly correlated with the quality components. Student interviews and comments given in the survey supported the importance of interactivity and the relationships identified in the survey.; The 26 significant interactivity items were grouped into the categories of Social Presence, Motivation, Problems and Level of Education. The Social Presence category supported Short's theory of Social Presence, Moore's theory of Transactional Distance and Holmberg's theory of Guided Didactic Conversation. Recommendations included the need for a more comprehensive theory of interactivity for online distance education courses and possible ways to improve student satisfaction.