Gender Differences in Student Perception of The Role of Learner-Content Interactions On Their Engagement In Online Courses

Online education continues to rise. With the outbreak of the global pandemic, various institutions have opted to put their courses online so that faculty members, students and staff members could be safe (Hodges et al, 2020; Zhou et al, 2020). With the high number of online learners, instructors and course designers may need to establish ways of engaging their students in an online course. Numerous practices have been suggested for engaging learners in an online learning environment. These strategies proposed center around how learner-content interactions, learner-technology interactions and learner-learner interactions can be improved to engage online students (Chakraborty & Nafukho, 2014). However, very few studies have investigated if there are gender differences in student views of the role of learner-content interactions on their engagement in an online course. This study focuses on learner-content interactions and how it plays a role in learner engagement. The learners rated how the following aspects of course content impacts their engagement in an online learning environment; personal interests in the subject matter, narrated lecture videos provided as a class resource, interactive assignments presented in the class, critical thinking assignments presented in the class and problem-solving assignments presented in the class. Researchers examined if male and female perceptions of the role of learner-content interactions on their engagement in an online learning environment was different.