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Assessing the Perception of Engineering Management Students towards Online Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the perception of engineering and engineering management students towards online courses compared to the traditional on-campus courses, and understand their preferences for different online course delivery techniques. Differences between engineering disciplines are also analyzed here along with other factors such as previous exposure to online learning and demographics of the students. Another goal here is to understand whether offering online courses could attract more engineering students to engineering management courses. The results of a survey study conducted among engineering students are presented here to answer these research questions. The results show that there are variations among disciplines and demography, thus an online learning program needs to be designed to address the needs of different types of learners from different engineering disciplines.

Introduction

Motivation:

The interest in online learning has been growing rapidly, since it can provide convenience and flexibility both in terms of location and scheduling. Recently, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Systems Engineering and Engineering Management Program, has decided to jump on the online bandwagon. Online delivery has been selected as a strategic initiative, which resulted in the establishment of an Online MS in Engineering Management that will be starting during the Fall of 2009. The presented study was conducted to provide inputs to the design of this new online program.

Distance education seems to be an innovative and educationally progressive idea with many benefits. So no wonder that more and more universities try to be part of this trend. With the advances in technology incorporating Web 2.0 technologies and even virtual reality applications such as Second Life, the possibilities to create great online classes have multiplied. According to the Sloan Consortium (A Consortium of Institutions and Organizations Committed to Quality Online Education) website[9]: “For the past several years, online enrollments have been growing substantially faster than overall higher education enrollments” They also give some numbers to prove this statement:

• During Fall 2006, e.g. there were almost 3.5 million students taking at least one online course, which is almost 20% of all US higher education students. This number is almost a 10% increase from the year before. • The overall growth rate for higher education student population is about 1.5%, while for online enrollments it is 9.7%.

Seeing these numbers gives a definite strong motivation for institutions to join in the online lerning experience.

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Ozelkan, E., & Galambosi, A. (2009, June), Assessing Engineering Management Students’ Perception Of On Line Learning Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--5193