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- All Subjects: Online Education
- Creators: Buss, Ray R.
Description
Customized online education is a means of educating a large amount of users in a way that will change their behavior at a low incremental cost to the one providing the information. This thesis will examine several aspects of online education, but primarily focus on the presentation of the materials. It will examine how this is done through a consulting project I worked on in conjunction with the New Venture Group for Parenting Arizona. Parenting Arizona is a non-profit organization based in Arizona that offers classes for parents who are seeking better ways to manage their family responsibilities. The purpose of the consulting project was to take the instructional materials used in in-person group classes and modify it to be effectively used for instruction in an online environment. Parenting Arizona foresaw a number of benefits from this modification and migration of instructional materials for the web; first among these was the ability of people in remote areas or in situations that did not allow them to attend an on-ground class to gain access to instructional material. In addition, the broader availability of the material that would come from its presence on the web would expand the influence of good parenting instructions to a greater audience both inside and outside the State of Arizona, aiding even more families.
ContributorsAnderson, Kyle (Author) / Brooks, Dan (Thesis director) / Forss, Brennan (Committee member) / Rosen, Julie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2012-05
Description
Providing adequate resources for undergraduate students’ career development has been of utmost importance to meet demands from national agencies and industry leaders. At Arizona State University, the size of the undergraduate populations in the School of Life Sciences (SOLS) grew from 1,591 to 3,661, an increase of over 130% from 2003-2017. As of December 19, 2019, SOLS hosted a record 5,318 undergraduate majors on campus and 1,646 students in its online biological sciences program. This steady increase in life science undergraduate student enrollment at ASU attested to the need for appropriate career development education to be woven into the curriculum. Under the framework of higher education’s purpose to provide adequate resources for career success, a career development intervention was designed and implemented as a career planning course for life science students. The purpose of this project was to provide a continuum of job and career information to SOLS’ students to ensure they had appropriate, comprehensive information as they learned about and considered various career opportunities in the life sciences. Three theoretical perspectives guided the research project: Holland’s (1985, 1997) theory of vocational personalities and their connections to work environments, Sampson, Peterson, Reardon and Lenz’s (2003) cognitive information processing career decision theory (CIP), and Bandura’s (1986) self-efficacy theory. Survey results showed increases in all seven constructs—knowledge of career exploration and development tasks, perception of possible professional and career goals and opportunities, goal selection, occupational information, problem solving, planning, self-appraisal—over time among the students. Interview data indicated students noted (a) enrollment in the course for reasons such as determining a career choice that met their needs and preferences while managing expectations and pressures from external sources; (b) broadening perceptions of career options, and (c) developing career exploration and planning skills. The success from this discipline-specific career development course was timely because university leaders were seeking solutions to increase students’ career readiness. The discussion focused on complementarity of the data, connections to the extant research, implications for practice and research, personal lessons learned, and a conclusion.
ContributorsChristianson, Serena L. (Author) / Buss, Ray R. (Thesis advisor) / Fong, Raquel (Committee member) / Reardon, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021