Towards Effective Counselor Education: Does Student Learning Style Predict Student Satisfaction In A Distance Education Class?

<p>Distance education is an increasingly relevant topic within the counselor education field. Student-centered factors such as student satisfaction have been shown to be linked with retention rates. The purpose of this study was to answer the following research questions:</p> <p>1. Is there an interaction effect on student satisfaction between demographic variables such as age, majority vs. non-majority status and gender?</p> <p>2. Does an individual's level of experience with distance education courses impact his/her scores on the DELES subscale of overall satisfaction within the context of a distance education environment?</p> <p>3. Does an individual's learning style as measured by the subscales of Kolb's LSI predict his or her satisfaction as measured by the subscales of Walker's DELES with the learning environment of a distance education class in a counselor education program?</p> <p>4. What is the relationship between an individual's scores on Kolb's LSI subscales and his/her scores on Walker's DELES subscales?</p> <p>Respondents were 52 Masters-level graduate students (Female-47, Male-5) of limited ethnic diversity (European American-45, African American-3, Hispanic-2, Asian-1, Pacific Islander-1).</p> <p>A Canoncial Correlation was used to establish relationships between factors and multiple regressions were then used to further explore those relationships and to establish any predictive value.</p> <p>Results did not indicate a statistically significant predictive relationship between learning style subscale scores and student satisfaction scores. Results did indicate that the student's degree of experience with distance education was of some value in predicting student satisfaction. However, the overall result for all retained models indicated that these factors accounted for less than 20% of the overall variance in student satisfaction scores. Applications for counselor education are discussed and directions for future research suggested.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Campus Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Studies

Year

2009

Author dc:creator

• Walsh, Michael Joseph

Contributors dc:contributor

• Joshua Gold

• Education
• Educational Methods
• Adult Education
• Andragogy
• Counselor Education
• Distance Education
• Pedagogy

Statement dc:rights

• © 2009, Michael Joseph Walsh

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/105

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarcommons.sc.edu:etd-1106