EDD-FPX8030_StraccioneAnthony_Assessment2-1
docx
School
Delaware County Community College *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
MISC
Subject
Communications
Date
Apr 3, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
7
Uploaded by astraccione
1
Assessment 2: Frame Your Issue and Collect Your Data
Anthony Straccione
School of Public Service and Education, Capella University
EDD-FPX8030: Investigating Problems of Practice
Marie Orizondo-Harding
July 9, 2023
2
Framing an Organizational Issue and Collecting Data
While online learning has been around for a few decades already, very recently this modality has become increasingly popular. Students in various levels of their education can now more conveniently complete their courses and even entire programs from anywhere they have an internet connection. Colleges and universities must find ways to offer more courses and entire programs using online modalities or likely suffer continued drops in both enrollment and retention rates. The most important thing to understand about your conceptual framework is that it is primarily a conception or model of what is out there that you plan to study, and of what is
going on with these things and why—a tentative theory of the phenomena that you are investigating, (Maxwell, 2013).
The discussions and information presented in the following sections will identify and frame an organizational issue that relates to a problem of practice at a local community college in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Significant Problem of Practice
The problem at the community college is that they do not offer enough online courses for the current student demand. The number of students requesting online course modalities over the
last few semesters has increased across many of the majors that the college currently offers. Unfortunately, it is not always feasible for the college to provide multiple course modalities for all of the many courses that are offered each semester. Additionally, the college does not even offer any of its current majors as completely online degree programs. During the pandemic, all courses at the college had to switch to fully online courses. This
went on for 5 semesters in a row with some courses be offered as completely online and others either being offered as synchronous or asynchronous, which used Zoom meetings to replace the traditional classroom. After the first year, it was noticed that many students were becoming more
3
and more used to the online format, regardless of whether they had Zoom meetings times or not. As the pandemic started to wind down, and the college started offering traditional classes, it was noticed that the online classes were being filled during registration much more quickly than the traditional classes were. Many of the online classes were filling to capacity while the traditional classes were actually seeing fewer enrollments with some of the traditional classes having to be cancelled due to low enrollment. Already struggling to meet enrollment projections at this time, the college decided to survey all current students to gain insight on how they preferred to now take their classes. Despite the surveys, along with the current enrollment trend, showing that most of the college’s students now preferred to take their classes in an online format, the college struggled with providing as many online modalities as it should have. While the college is now offering more online class modalities then it ever had in the past, there is still a need to increase both the amount of online classes offered each semester, as well as a need for the college to start offering entire degree and certificate programs in online modalities.
Guiding Research Questions
What is the difference in current enrollment numbers in regards to online course offerings
versus traditional course offerings?
How many courses are being offered in regards to online courses versus traditional courses?
Which current course modality offering has the highest overall enrollments rates?
Which course modalities are more easily staffed?
Which programs have the most online course offerings and what are their retention rates compared to programs with few or no online course offerings?
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
4
Guiding Research Questions Justification
The information obtained by asking the guiding research questions listed in the previous section is important because it will help determine if the lack of online course offerings at the college are in fact creating a performance gap between target enrollment projections and actual current enrollment. This is imperative to know in order to justify the importance of needing further research on this topic and eventually formulating a process to help rectify the organizational problem of practice being suggested here. Additionally, the guiding research questions listed in the previous section will help lay a foundation for developing more precise questions to use during the interviewing and data collection process. The precise wording and selection of questions are critical for the construction of a research interview, (Gillham, 2005).
The first guided research question will solicit information specifically about enrollment figures for both online and traditional course offerings. This is important data to retrieve in order to identify if there is a trend or change in recent student enrollments that would justify the need for the college starting to offer more online course modalities. The second question is an extension of the first question that will help expand the understanding about the current reality of
the college’s current course offerings. The third question will also solicit information about enrollment rates but will more specifically help to identify what types of course modalities the students at the college prefer to now register for when completing their degree programs. While the fourth question is also related to course modalities, it is going to solicit information about possible staffing disparities. This will be important to research in order to determine if there may be additional and major root cause to the college’s organizational issue outlined previously. The final question will solicit information about the college’s programs and help to determine if
5
programs that have more online course offerings are more successful in retaining students than program with fewer online course offerings.
Data Collection Plan
Data collection is a major component of any research project. One of the most common ways to collect data while performing research is through interviews with various participants. Interviews are a primary means of obtaining valid and authentic information in action research, (
Stringer & Aragon, 2021
).
The following sections will provide the data collection plan that will be used to explore the college’s organizational issue and identify a problem of practice that needs
to be rectified.
The Sample and Interview Plan
The sample being used for this research will consist of 2 faculty members from the college. The first faculty member is both a professor and a program coordinator at the college. The second faculty member also teaches some classes but their main role at the college is being the director of the college’s online and learning management system. The interviews will be one-
on-one and conducted using Zoom. Both participants will be initially contacted using the college’s e-mail system and any continuing contact necessary will also occur through this e-mail system. Currently there are no indications that there will be limitations in collecting any data and
the expectation is that no future interviews will be necessary at this time.
Interview Questions
What are your thoughts about the college offering more online courses?
What are your thoughts about the college starting to offer entire online programs?
In what ways do you think offering more online courses and programs will benefit the college’s students?
6
In your teaching experience over the last few years, what barriers do you feel your online students have had to overcome?
What are your thoughts about teaching courses online as opposed to teaching courses in a
traditional format?
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
7
References
Gillham, B. (2005).
Research interviewing : The range of techniques
. McGraw-Hill Education.
Maxwell, J. A. (2013).
Qualitative research design: An interactive approach
(3rd ed.). Sage.
Stringer, E. T., & Aragon, A. O. (2021).
Action research
(5th ed.). Sage.