Conveying Positive Regard in Distance Courses: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The present study operationalizes perceived positive regard in the form of a practical measure that can be applied in distance delivery settings. We collected data by surveying distance students at our university. The questions pertained to the quality of learning and the positive regard of the instructor as perceived by the students. Analytical methods included principal components analysis (PCA) to confirm that each group of questions was measuring a common construct, and correlation (Pearson’s r) of the constructs. We found that the effect measure was valid and that it was positively correlated with student learning outcomes.

Keywords: positive regard, distance education, exploratory study, principal components analysis