Active Distance Learning: How Student Perceptions Affect Academic Performance

Active distance learning is an appealing approach that allows students to study at a distance by completing learning activities at their own pace without watching recorded or live lectures. This approach, however, raises some concerns due to the lack of teacher guidance, feedback, and scaffolding. Still, a thoughtful design of the learning activities can mitigate this issue. In this study, we aimed to investigate how students perceive distance learning activities and how their perceptions affect their performance on immediate short tests. Using regression analysis of 103 students' data and 62 learning activities, we investigated the relationship between the grades and completion time of the learning activities and students' ratings of the perceived level of interest, motivation, challenge, frustration, and boredom. We found out, for example, that student perceptions of interest and motivation are essentially affected by grades rather than the activity's completion time. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between the perceptions of the learning activities and students' performance on immediate, short tests. The regression model showed that the perceived motivation, interest, and challenge have a remarkably strong impact on students' performance. We conclude that active distance learning can benefit from a thoughtful design of learning activities that takes students' perceptions seriously into consideration.