Salient syllabi: Examining design characteristics of science online courses in higher education

Introduction

The importance of online coursework in higher education reached new heights due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) induced shift to emergency remote education. However, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, many students enrolled in online courses. For instance, about 34% of all undergraduate students (about 5.7 million students) enrolled in at least one online course [1]. Although studies reported that online learning in higher education can have positive effects similar to face-to-face coursework [2–4], more recent studies underscored that the effectiveness of online education is a field full of heterogeneous effects with ample research studies indicating that students may struggle in online learning environments [5–9]. This may lead to lower course persistence rates in online settings, compared to their face-to-face counterparts [9, 10]. Especially, students with weaker self-regulation are challenged in online learning environments [11–14].

To unpack potential areas for improvement of online learning, recent studies examined the structure and design of online courses to identify quality indicators of online course experiences [10, 15]. Much work that examines the effectiveness of college courses relies on course observations or student evaluations [15–18]. However, course observations and student evaluations have several limitations. For instance, student course evaluations tend to disfavor female instructors [19]. In-depth course observations may provide rich information regarding course design features but require intensive time commitment from observers making data collections at scale difficult. Course syllabi may address these scalability problems as they represent a more cost-effective, less biased, and less invasive approach to examine course quality. Thus, this study utilizes course syllabi as its primary data source and adapts existing classification rubric primarily used in observational studies for course syllabi.

This study has implications for multiple stakeholders. From a theoretical perspective, it represents the first step in identifying links between syllabus-derived course design features and student performance. From a practitioner perspective, identifications of important course design features may guide instructional practice. From an administrative perspective, this study responds to the need for colleges to benchmark their online course quality as departments may want to continue including online course offering in their teaching portfolios after the Covid-19 pandemic. Inferences may support the development of cost-effective (and feasible) ways to assess many online courses and to identify courses that are not fully leveraging the...