For more than a decade, there has been continual, sustained growth in online education. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2016), by Fall 2014, there were 5,750,417 or 28.5% of undergraduate students enrolled in an online course. Furthermore, 2,824,334 or 14.0% of these students were enrolled in exclusively distance education courses (U.S. Department of Education, 2016).
Disciplines that routinely require face-to-face interaction due to clinical, experiential learning have also stepped onto the online educational landscape. In particular, nursing education has pushed forward seeking opportunity in the online, cyberspace continuum. The online format allows great flexibility for adults with time commitments (work and/or family responsibilities) to have access to a quality education regardless of their geographical location to their institution providing these individuals the learning opportunity which they may not otherwise have.
Online learning offers students the opportunity of course access 24/7. As students assimilate into this learning modality, their expectations of faculty presence during this “all hours” time frame has been of great consideration. Students align high online faculty presence with their learning satisfaction (Ke, 2010, Kang & Im, 2013) and believe communication, availability, and compassion to be the most important characteristics of a quality online instructor (Orso & Doolittle, 2011). Compassion aligns closely with the concept of caring, the basis and philosophical foundation of nursing. Thus, this should be an implicit element of online nursing courses as well as instructional immediacy behaviors, instructor presence, and communication to reduce transactional distance. These variables are ever present in students’ expectations of faculty accessing their course and responding to student communications. Students believe “faculty messages that are respectful, positive, encouraging, timely, and frequent add to feelings of social presence and the reciprocal feelings of caring among students” (Plante & Asselin, 2014, p. 222).
Purpose:
Delivering quality online education to pre-licensure undergraduate nursing students incorporates the challenge of providing best practices in regards to caring behaviors and social presence to enhance student learning and success (Plante & Asselin, 2014). In acknowledgment of this, student presence is also an important variable to consider. Having a window into student presence via course activity reports available through the Blackboard learning management system (LMS) can theoretically portray daily student presence within a course over days, weeks, and semesters. Given this information, therein lies the assumption that faculty availability may be seen as a greater necessity on higher activity days. Is the typical Monday through Friday a sufficient faculty presence for online students? Or is an expanded, seven day, faculty availability better suited to match student presence on their course LMS? As a means to answer these questions, the purpose of this study is to identify times and days of course usage in Blackboard LMS by students enrolled in three different clinical courses in an LPN-to-BSN program to form recommendations for online faculty presence and availability.
Methods:
Although studies have looked at course logins, these were used to determine individual student frequency of overall access, frequency of accessing reading materials, and discussion board postings (Wei, Peng, & Chou, 2015; Park 2017). Likewise, Kauffmann and Wilck (2014) assessed the relationship of site hits and time spent with overall course grade although they felt that the level of detail available through Blackboard course/student reporting options was limited. Based on this, the attempt of this study is to capture time spent in a Blackboard course for the simple purpose of determining days and cumulative hours of use for a class as a whole. There was no attempt to collect information on time spent by specific students or what information was accessed within the Blackboard LMS. The purpose of this study is based on the premise that students are accustomed to 24/7 availability of their course and the like presumption/expectation that instructor availability aligns.
After receiving the IRB determination of exempt status, archival data was collected from three fully online clinical nursing courses over the duration of six consecutive semesters (Fall and Spring semesters) from Fall 2013 through Spring 2016. These homogenous courses included NURS 338, “Mental Health Nursing,” NURS 324, “Nursing Care of Adults II,” and NURS 424, “Nursing Care of adults III.” Only aggregate data was collected which reflected the amount of time per specific weekday that students spent in the LMS in each of the specified courses. FERPA guidelines were adhered to as only faculty who had taught the courses accessed the aggregate data for each of the respective courses. Data was obtained from the courses in question through the Course Reporting/Course Activity Overview reports function which provides the number of hours students spent per weekday in the LMS.
To assess student login activity, five specific blocks of time per semester were chosen. Based on the assumption that students may spend more time in a new course, Weeks 1-3 (block 1) of each semester of each course was reviewed. Likewise, presuming students are settled in and acclimated to their course, Weeks 7-9 (block 2) of each semester of each course was reviewed. Additionally, end of semester busyness, could be reflected in an assessment of Weeks 12-14 (block 3) for each semester of each course. During Week 15 (block 4) of each semester, there is Study Week where no exams or papers are assigned and is intended for final examination preparation. This week was also reviewed for each semester for each course. Finally, to provide a complete overview, the cumulative time spent during the entire semester, Weeks 1-16 (block 5) was also obtained.
Results:
Although there is some variation, there is a clear pattern of usage by the students which is remarkably consistent over a period of six semesters for each of the three courses and is also remarkably consistent between the courses. As evidenced by the data, students spend roughly the same amount of time each day of the week with a spike on Sunday which shows roughly twice the time spent each of the other days of the week. For the three week time intervals, there is more variation seen, yet with the exception of Study Week, usage remains reasonably steady for each day of the week with the same spike in usage seen in Sundays. The greater variation is reasonable to expect given that each block of time is an average of only three weeks (Weeks 1-3, Weeks 7-9, and Weeks 12-14), while Study Week is strictly one week.
To get a better overview of the percentage of time spent within the LMS over the six semesters, for each of the three courses, for each day of the week, the data was further reduced by combing all six semesters for each course separately. The percentage of time spent in each of the three separate courses is once again remarkably consistent. The data presented suggests that at least for these three courses, students spend roughly the same amount of time each day of the week with a spike on Sundays which is again, roughly twice the amount of time spent in a course as other days.
Conclusion:
The data suggests that perhaps the increase in usage on Sundays may be linked to due dates. Regardless, the results may indicate a need to define faculty work week parameters, presence, and flexibility as needed to align with student usage patterns in the LMS.
Nursing faculty who teach online courses historically have experience in a face-to-face modality and transfer skills to online education. Transferring content knowledge from a face-to-face setting to an online setting is relatively straight forward, however faculty availability is something quite different. Faculty may need to consider how to respond effectively to students who use time outside of the normal workweek to complete course requirements and have little time during the workweek to interact effectively with faculty. It is through this educational process and interaction with faculty that “students first learn about the meaning and embodiment of professional caring” (Sitzman, 2016).Thus, adjustments to access by faculty may be necessary and a dialogue must ensue.
Results indicate that as an aggregate group, students in the clinical courses investigated in this LPN-to-BSN fully online nursing program, spend approximately twice as much time in the LMS on Sundays as compared to other days of the week and faculty availability during this time should be considered. As nursing faculty we should remain close to our foundation of caring, the spirit of nursing, and extend this behavior into nursing education practice within reason. Redefining our presence in a caring manner may elicit reciprocal caring from students. Respect begets respect, or at least we wish it to be so in our virtual learning community.
Recommendations for Future Research:
Future research recommendations should include student LMS usage patterns that have consistent due dates that do not fall on a weekend by proposing alternative scheduling options. Analysis of non-clinical nursing courses may also provide further insight if the clinical component may be affecting LMS usage. In comparison, other disciplines and demographics should also be considered to determine if there is congruency in LMS usage patterns.
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