Examining student engagement with online tools: comparing asynchronous and synchronous methodologies

To date, there is a lack of research comparing student engagement with asynchronous and synchronous online educational tools. A research-based comparison of asynchronous vs. synchronous tool use in online teaching environments merits an examination to determine which type of tool use is preferred for engaging students in course content. To fill the research gap, this dissertation study developed an Online Teaching Tools Engagement Framework featuring five indicators: a) Active Learning, b) Attention, c) Attitude, d) Collaboration with Peers, and e) Faculty Interaction to facilitate this examination of student engagement. Next, a survey was designed to test six specific online tools, three from each communication category. Using this framework and the online tools, three research questions related to tool use were developed and answered. The Online Teaching Tools Engagement Survey was made available to ten university classes posing three questions associated with each of the five indicators for each of the six tools, thus, providing 90 data points. A repeated measures ANOVA followed by a Bonferroni post-hoc test was conducted to find significant differences on each indicator as well as to measure an overall engagement score. A paired-samples t-test was also utilized to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the two communication categories. Of the tested tools, email was regarded as the most engaging by the participants in a majority of indicators. Virtual classrooms were rated poorly by participants as the least frequently used tool. Audio/video conferencing performed poorly in the Faculty Interaction indicator, as did all tools in the Collaboration with Peers indicator. Recommendations for improving online instructional environments are provided to promote more faculty training in using online student engagement tools and for further developing tools to make online education less of a solo pursuit.