Learning or Lurking Tracking the ‘strongInvisiblestrong’ Online Student.pdfVIP

Learning or Lurking? Tracking the ‘Invisible’ Online Student Michael F. Beaudoin While much has been written regarding the learning behaviors of students participating in online courses, little research has been conducted to ascertain whether or not students are still engaged and actually learning even when not actively involved in online discourse with other students and faculty. This study of inactive students enrolled in an online graduate course attempts to identify how much time is spent in course related activity, what the reasons are for their “invisibility”, and if their preferred learning styles influence their online behavior. The data shows that these students do, in fact, spend a significant amount of time in learning related tasks, including logging on, even when not visibly participating, and they feel they are still learning and benefiting from this low profile approach to their online studies. However, preliminary analyses of course grades indicate that the mean grade is slightly better for high visibility learners than for no visibility learners. Findings suggest that further research in the area of the so-called invisible learner is a critical area of investigation to better understand the dynamics of asynchronous learning and teaching. 1. Introduction It is assumed that a high level of interaction is desirable and increases the effectiveness of both classroom and distance education courses (Fulford Zhang, 1993). As early as 1970, Flanders demonstrated that increased interaction improves student achievement in classroom venues. However, to date, there is still a paucity of evaluative data that clearly indicates online interaction enhances the quality of learning in distance education courses. As interactive modalities have increasingly facilitated the connectivity between