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Recent years have seen a continuing trend of increased enrollment in distance education (Lederman, 2018). Seaman and Seaman (2019) report that, although higher education enrollment decreased overall between 2012 and 2019, the number of students taking online courses increased drastically. As of 2019, 37.2% of all students in higher education were enrolled in at least one online course.
The full impact of these online enrollment trends was experienced in Spring 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic required a rapid and unexpected transition to distance learning. This impact was measured, in part, by the annual Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) Project coordinated by Eduventures Research and Quality Matters. Since 2016, this report has sought to identify current trends in online education at postsecondary institutions across the United States. The 2020 report, the CHLOE-5, specifically studied the impact of the unexpected shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic based on surveys of chief online officers at participating institutions. Those institutions already offering online courses were considerably better prepared for the shift than institutions without online offerings. The abrupt transition highlighted common issues facing institutions offering online courses, some of which include underprepared students and faculty, insufficient instructional design support, and inadequate resources and infrastructure (Garrett et al., 2020).
Faculty teaching online courses have a variety of pedagogical responsibilities in terms of designing instruction, delivering content, and assessing learning. In addition, faculty also play an important role in supporting students which, in turn, supports retention. Structuring courses in such a way as to encourage students to utilize university support services outside of the classroom is one strategy. Students’ lack of awareness of the support services that exist can be a barrier to utilizing them appropriately. Finding ways to help students see how support services, such as tutoring or research assistance, connect to course assignments may be one way for faculty to impact students’ use of such services.
The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine which support services undergraduate students enrolled in online courses used most frequently and their satisfaction with these services. Specifically, this study posed three research questions:
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What university support services are undergraduate students using to ensure their success in online courses?
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What are undergraduate students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of university support services?
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From undergraduate students’ perspectives, what additional support services should be implemented to increase student success in online courses?