OnlineSuccess

The wide adoption of online learning methods has brought about many issues. The purpose of this project is to investigate the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that can try to alleviate these issues. The project is specific to an online introductory programming course that will be offered at UCT. 

The project was divided into two sections, one that investigates the Gamification CSF, and the other which looks into Student-Instructor Interactions (SIIs). 

A survey was done for the Gamification CSF, to determine students’ attitudes towards having gamification elements added to Vula. Students indicated specific gamification elements that they would like to have and these elements were adapted into a prototype system. 

A web application was developed for the SIIs sub-project, to determine whether pairing lecture videos with their own forums would compel students to post more frequently, and the effect of introducing mandatory in-lecture quizzes, on SIIs. 

The gamification survey showed that over 90% of students believed that the addition of gamification elements to Vula would increase their interactions with the course content. Results from the SIIs research indicated that 92.3% of the students found the new forum system easier to access and navigate and that this would compel them to make more forum posts. Over 88% of them also indicated that the mandatory quizzes increased their interactions with the lecturer. 

It was not possible to identify CSFs which guaranteed success in UCT’s context, but gamification has been proven to increase the likelihood of course completion. For SIIs, we can conclude that pairing lecture videos with their own forums, and having in-lecture quizzes leads to an increase in SIIs.