Year

2025

Season

Summer

Paper Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Silverfield College of Education and Human Services

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership (EdD)

Department

Leadership, School Counseling & Sport Management

NACO controlled Corporate Body

University of North Florida. Department of Leadership, School Counseling & Sports Management

Committee Chairperson

Dr. Amanda Pascale

Second Advisor

Dr. Suzanne Ehrlich

Third Advisor

Dr. Deb Miller

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Amanda Kulp

Department Chair

Dr. Kristi Sweeney

College Dean

Dr. Steve Dittmore

Abstract

Ample evidence supports the impact of greater student social engagement on student success outcomes, particularly for first time in college freshmen students (Avison et al., 2007; Tinto, 1997; Wilcox et al., 2005). Keeping students engaged socially online can be challenging for some faculty due to reliance on strategies that worked previously within face-to-face environments (McQuiggan, 2012). At the University of North Florida, a Teaching Online (TOL) certification course provides instructors with evidence-based online pedagogy aimed at bolstering social engagement.

This dissertation investigated whether and how faculty implementation of TOL design principles impacted freshmen students’ social engagement with both peers and instructors in fully online courses. A quasi-experimental, post-test design surveyed 44 first-year undergraduates near mid-term in Fall 2024. Students completed the “Dialogue with Students” and “Dialogue with Instructors” subscales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, while rating the extent to which their course reflected TOL elements.

Perceived TOL implementation correlated positively with peer dialogue (r = 0.39, p = .009) and even more strongly with student-to-faculty dialogue (r = 0.52, p < .001). Adding TOL implementation to the control model increased explained variance from 25 % to 37 % for peer dialogue (B = 0.47, p = .012) and from 11 % to 37 % for instructor dialogue (B = 0.72, p < .001). Findings underscore that it is not completion of faculty training but the faithful application of its design principles that elevates online interaction. Institutions should pair development courses like TOL with follow-up support—design audits, peer mentoring, and coaching—to ensure training translates into engagement-rich course structures.

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