Student Perceptions of the Impact of QM-Certified Online Courses on Their Learning and Engagement

Quality Matters (QM) is one of the most widely adopted sets of standards for best practices in online courses to promote student learning. In this study, we examined student perceptions of the impact of QM-certified courses on students’ learning and engagement. Fifty graduate students enrolled in online courses completed a survey developed based on the QM Rubric items. The QM framework includes 43 individual standards clustered into eight general categories. Among the eight categories, students rated Course Activities and Learner Interaction to have the highest impact on both student learning and engagement.  These results will help instructional designers and online instructors understand the impact of individual QM design standards from students’ point of view to design online courses that effectively contribute to their learning and engagement.