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Solomon, Jacob
(2022).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.00014901
Abstract
This work assesses the efficacy of the educational practice of school faculties supporting the motivation of their students studying wholly-online-delivered academic courses in the pre-university final two years of secondary school. Its focus is on the pioneering 2015-2019 work of Pamoja Education, an official provider of IB (International Baccalaureate) fully-online subject courses whose target clientele is the international school community served by the IB, and whose results during that period consistently paralleled the range of IB grades as a whole. In anticipating motivation issues in regular online study, this company requires and formally enables a student-support structure that includes the designation, training, and liaisoning with a faculty member of the student’s school serving in an on-site facilitator role as a site-based coordinator (SBC).
This study considers the contribution that this SBC arrangement makes to allow the virtual learning environment to rival formal classroom instruction in terms of academic standards achieved. It investigated the range of motivational challenges faced by online students within the framework of self-determination theory, particularly within the extrinsic domains of student autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Students (14), SBCs (4), and Pamoja staff (2) responded within semi-structured interviews on student motivation and the types of support that the SBCs provide. This data was classified into themes and codes using thematic analysis, which indicated that mainly due to their proximity and thus their relatedness to the student, the SBCs at Pamoja do substantially contribute towards promoting and maintaining sustained student engagement and optimal student performance within that virtual learning environment. However, those findings strongly implied that the nature and intensity of the support needed varied from student to student.
The findings indicate that the motivational role of the SBC is recognized by a large body of students as well as SBCs and Pamoja staff as being crucial to student motivational well-being in the virtual environment and that with such support, online delivery could well be a viable means of enabling schools to widen their curriculum without having to employ additional staff.
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