Title: Teaching approach and student performance in e-learning

Authors: Nancy Tsai

Addresses: Faculty of Information Systems & Business Analytics, College of Business Administration, California State University, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, California 95819, USA

Abstract: Despite the various benefits generated from online teaching/learning, this approach always produces a high drop rate and a low passing rate resulting from some students' lack of discipline, motivation, and guidance in an isolated learning environment. A crucial responsibility of an online instructor is to increase students' learning engagements and their academic performances via a teaching motivation strategy and its implementation approach. This study examines and assesses impacts on students' learning performances from one motivation strategy and two implementation approaches: teacher-motivated and teacher-guided. The substance of the motivation strategy is based on the ARCS motivation model and implementation approaches utilise two motivation principles of self-determination theory. Findings suggest that the implementation approach is just as important as the motivation strategy for improving students' learning. The teacher-guided approach with active and constant virtual communication between instructor and students significantly increases students' learning efforts and academic performances.

Keywords: online learning; motivation; strategy implementation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2021.114521

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2021 Vol.29 No.3, pp.358 - 372

Received: 29 Oct 2019
Accepted: 10 May 2020
Published online: 26 Apr 2021 *

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