Student Perspectives of the Quality Matters Rubric 7th Edition
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
Online learning in higher education has increased as a delivery method of instruction. Students often opt for this class format because of its flexibility and convenience. Graduate programs, in general, have seen an increase in total enrollment by 10 percent between fall 2009 and fall 2020 (i.e., from 2.8 million to 3.1 million students) (Irwin et al., 2022). Additionally, the number of students at private for-profit institutions taking distance education courses exclusively was higher than at private nonprofit and public institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). Still, the quality of instruction in online spaces requires faculty training and preparation (Palloff & Pratt, 2011). The Quality Matters (QM) Rubric (Quality Matters, 2023) is a well-known rubric and regarded standard for online course design.
Some of the benefits of QM in online courses include explicit instructor expectations for students, a clear grading policy (Bento & White, 2010), and more involvement and learning from a student’s perspective (Gaston & Lynch, 2019; Lynch & Gaston, 2020). Although the benefits of QM in online courses are known, there is limited research regarding students’ perceptions of QM standards' impact on their learning and engagement (Sadaf et al., 2019). Thus, investigating students' perceptions of the impact of QM standards on their learning and engagement is essential to add to the body of knowledge in the field.
