Analysis of Virtual and Traditional Teaching Assistants Used in Introductory to Animal Science Courses

NACTA Journal, Sep 2005 by Day, M L, Orvis, K S, Latour, M A

Online students felt the interaction they had with the teaching assistant made a significant difference on how they felt about the class. Possibly, having a teaching assistant available for online courses encourages interaction within the distance learning environment. Teaching assistants have generally been known to play a beneficial role in creating interaction and therefore affect the student's satisfaction with the course. This finding concurs with a study by Fulford and Zhang (1993), who found that a key factor in student satisfaction is not based on their active participation, but on their perception that interaction was occurring.

Both the online and traditional campus students identified the course as encouraging interaction with the teaching assistant. The professor felt as though he was equally available to assist subjects and did not encourage the students in either direction. However, the majority of subjects in both groups felt as though the interaction with the teaching assistant was encouraged. More specifically, online students felt they were able to get more personal attention in the class using the teaching assistant. Online students felt teaching assistants were more available than the professor. Interestingly, online students contacted both the teaching assistant and the professor through email; moreover, in a number of cases, teaching assistants would have to pass information to the professor for an answer and then the assistant would then resend that information back to the student. Students approaching teaching assistants before the professor are quite normal or often observed. Apparently this trend to interact with the assistant before the professor is similar or follows a similar pattern for online students. Comfort level was greatly influenced for online students and they enjoyed the interaction with teaching assistants. In conclusion, the use of the teaching assistant in an online course benefits the distance learners by encouraging a comfortable environment even from a distance.

Summary

In summary, one of the most troubling concerns of distance education courses is the higher course "dropout" rate in online courses when compared to traditional courses. The feeling of isolation and frustration with technology are factors that contribute to the non-completion of online courses. Even though drop rate was not measured, there were no issues in the present study. The authors believe the course in this study was greatly enhanced through the use of virtual teaching assistants and this was reflected in the data. Teaching assistants greatly influenced their level of discussion, interaction, comfort level, student perceptions, motivation, and overall satisfaction. Distance learning is no longer a "new topic," but the addition of "virtual teaching assistants" is relatively new and in this particular study, the authors believe it contributed significantly to the overall quality of education for distance students. The area of virtual teaching assistants needs to be further researched to expand the training for a new era.