Investigating Engagement and Achievement in an Online Teacher Education Course during the Compulsory Distance Education Period

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate ways of improving preservice teachers' engagement in a teacher education course designed for online delivery and offered during the COVID-19 pandemic. While online teaching is a prominent research area, descriptions of online learning environments based on sound frameworks are typically missing in the literature. Addressing this gap, we investigated the role of online instruction, whose design was guided by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) framework, and supporting different types of interaction on students' engagement and course achievement. We designed two versions of the same course differing only in terms of the level of learner-learner and learner-content interaction support provided. The participants were 38 preservice teachers from a range of departments, who were in two different sections of the course, randomly assigned to one of the versions. Data were collected using a modified version of the NSSE survey at the beginning and at the end of the course. The analysis showed that online course design based on the NSSE framework was effective for improving students' engagement in a project-based teacher education course even in the COVID-19 pandemic period. Meanwhile, the participants did not differ in terms of their engagement scores in time regarding the course version they attended. And, there was no difference regarding students' achievement scores as measured by their final course grades. The findings highlighted the need to design online courses based on sound theory and provided insight into prioritizing different types of interactions in project-based online courses.