Exploring Online Student Engagement Scaffolded by Teacher Management Communication Style

Abstract

Prior studies of online student engagement generated insufficient information in longitudinal study about the scaffolding factors of the teachers. To address this gap, this study proposed the approach of Teacher Management Communication Style originally from organizational studies about the employer-employee dynamic. A longitudinal study was conducted for 8 weeks combining the 5-point Likert scale of Online Student Engagement, the self-designed Student Actual Online Learning Experience and Student Perceived Offline Learning Experience administered to 117 learners in a research university in three temporal stages. Statistical analysis, resulting from repeated measure ANOVA and Paired Samples t-tests, showed that there was a significant increase in Online Student Engagement in general and all the four factors of Skill, Emotion, Performance and Participation between stage 1 and stage 3. Further analysis showed the fluctuating yet increasing trend of Online Student Engagement in general and the three factors of Skill, Emotion and Participation between both stage 1 and stage 2, but no significant difference between stage 2 and sage 3. In addition, the study results indicated that the learners’ perceptions towards online learning and their intention to share the learning experience was significantly higher than those towards perceived offline experience. The findings shed lights on the pedagogy scaffolded by Management Communication Style and delineate the picture at a fine-grained level of online learning engagement.