Cindy Chen, Sabrina Landa, Aivanna Padilla and Jasmine Yur-Austin
Academic institutions with sufficient resources rapidly deployed virtual teaching technologies and training to minimize disruption following the Spring 2020 COVID-19 pandemic…
Abstract
Purpose
Academic institutions with sufficient resources rapidly deployed virtual teaching technologies and training to minimize disruption following the Spring 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This paper shares a College of Business experience to provide insights for administrators tasked with future online course scheduling decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire was administered in Fall (2020) to measure student perceptions of online learning using Likert-style questioning. The researchers used the results to build a structural equation model to differentiate perceptions between online course modalities and curriculum rigor (graduate/undergraduate, upper/lower divisions) and field of study (quantitative/qualitative, MBA/MS) factors.
Findings
The empirical findings support the notation that graduate and undergraduate learners exhibit different preferences of online modalities. The findings further demonstrate that curriculum rigor factors and field of study influence student satisfaction of online courses. The evidence also suggests varying dependence on instructor competency and technology effectiveness across asynchronous, hybrid, and synchronous modalities.
Practical implications
While this study is limited to the results of one higher education institution during a tumultuous period, as online education trends increase, the authors' methodology can be adapted and scaled to support post-pandemic administrative decision-making.
Originality/value
The research provides a new dimension on the perspectives of online learners through gathering perceptions in a timely student-centered survey administered during the emergency alternative modes of instruction. The research explores certain predictive factors to better align online modalities with learner satisfaction.
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Keywords
Cindy Chen, Sabrina Landa, Aivanna Padilla and Jasmine Yur-Austin
In response to coronavirus disease 2019, California State University Long Beach (CSULB) announced mandatory online course conversions on March 12, 2020. The College of Business…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to coronavirus disease 2019, California State University Long Beach (CSULB) announced mandatory online course conversions on March 12, 2020. The College of Business designed a Student Online Learning Experience Survey to explore learners' experience, needs, expectations and challenges in the online learning environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The time-sensitive survey questions were administered using Qualtrics with Institutional Review Board approval. The authors used 5-point Likert scales to rate students' experience and satisfaction and performed statistical analysis. They assessed students' written comments to further corroborate statistical findings.
Findings
The results identify students' satisfaction are highly correlated to content coverage and interaction of online learning technologies. A combination of BeachBoard, Zoom, e-mails and publisher's website is valued most by the learners. Project-based experiential design is ranked #1 by graduate students. Noticeably, the upward trend of satisfaction with online modality from sophomore to senior is probably attributable to learners' maturity and number of years studied at CSU system. Overall, students generally dislike proctoring devices due to concerns of privacy, inequalities, mental stress, etc.
Practical implications
The evidence-based results offer innovative pedagogical recommendations for business education in higher education.
Originality/value
While prior studies examine student perceptions and satisfaction within the online education system, the study aims to deeply investigate the students' experience after a large-scale two-week institutional emergency course conversion mandate. This study systematically reviews students' experience with four aspects of online learning: (1) the adequacy of instructional designs; (2) the effectiveness of technology; (3) the appropriateness of the online learning material and (4) the integrity of online assessment and testing tools.
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Iain Andrew Davies and Sabrina Gutsche
This paper aims to explore why consumers absorb ethical habits into their daily consumption, despite having little interest or understanding of the ethics they are buying into, by…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore why consumers absorb ethical habits into their daily consumption, despite having little interest or understanding of the ethics they are buying into, by looking at the motivation behind mainstream ethical consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
Fifty in-depth field interviews at point of purchase capture actual ethical consumption behavior, tied with a progressive-laddering interview technique yields over 400 consumption units of analysis.
Findings
Ethical attitudes, values and rational information processing have limited veracity for mainstream ethical consumption. Habit and constrained choice, as well as self-gratification, peer influence and an interpretivist understanding of what ethics are being purchased provide the primary drivers for consumption.
Research limitations/implications
Use of qualitative sampling and analysis limits the generalizability of this paper. However, the quantitative representation of data demonstrates the strength with which motivations were perceived to influence consumption choice.
Practical implications
Ethical brands which focus on explicit altruistic ethical messaging at the expense of hedonistic messaging, or ambiguous pseudo ethics-as-quality messaging, limit their appeal to mainstream consumers. Retailers, however, benefit from the halo effect of ethical brands in store.
Social implications
The paper highlights the importance of retailer engagement with ethical products as a precursor to normalizing ethical consumption, and the importance of normative messaging in changing habits.
Originality/value
The paper provides original robust critique of the current field of ethical consumption and an insight into new theoretical themes of urgent general interest to the field.
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Andrés Dapuez, Andrés Dzib May and Sabrina Gavigan
In a village of Eastern Yucatan, Mexico, cargo or kuuch sponsors compare their ritual tasks to “buying life” from crosses, Catholic saints, and Mayan deities or “owners.” The…
Abstract
In a village of Eastern Yucatan, Mexico, cargo or kuuch sponsors compare their ritual tasks to “buying life” from crosses, Catholic saints, and Mayan deities or “owners.” The local notion of compromiso, engagement, or commitment, helps these festival participants express the condition of possibility to successfully perform such exchanges. Decisive for these life renewals, promises, and compromisos depend upon empathy to authorize ritualists and subsume social and natural phenomena under exchange paradigms. By defining, critiquing and using the concept of “disposition” as an inherently self-other stance through which economy transforms into religiosity and vice versa, this chapter analyzes this particular regime of engagement and the temporalities it implies. Through a commitment to the past and the practice of promissory exchange, sponsors develop a new perceptual scheme in which the ritual cultivation of discipline, awareness, expectation, and responsibility are expressed.
Brianne Redquest, Pamela Bryden and Paula Fletcher
This study aims to explore social and motor impairments of children with autism through the perspectives of their caregivers. Social and motor deficits among people with autism…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore social and motor impairments of children with autism through the perspectives of their caregivers. Social and motor deficits among people with autism are well documented. There is support to suggest a reciprocal relationship between social and motor deficits among people with autism, in that social deficits can act as a barrier to motor skill development and motor deficits can act as a barrier to social skill development.
Design/methodology/approach
This study explored social and motor impairments of children with autism through the perspectives of eight caregivers of children with autism.
Findings
Many salient findings emerged from the interviews conducted with caregivers, particularly concerning the social and motor development of their children. The relationships between their children’s social and motor deficits were also highlighted.
Research limitations/implications
It is important that health-care professionals educate parents about the consequences of motor impairments or delays and their associations with the development of social skills. As such, routine motor skill monitoring and assessments by caregivers and health-care professionals should be encouraged.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to investigate motor and social deficits of children with autism from the caregivers’ perspectives.