Evaluation of Techniques for Eliciting Online Interaction in Systems Engineering Courses

For this study, we ask the question: what circumstances lead to synchronous student interaction in the synchronous online sections of Systems Engineering courses? Observations suggest that formative assessment question and answers, class structure, and technological capabilities can play a role in determining the level of classroom interaction, but these effects have not been quantified to date. In this study, we gather quantitative data on online-student to instructor real-time interactions using the archived recordings of 6 Systems Engineering courses offered in Fall 2015. The presence and participation of the students, and the types of successful interaction elicitation techniques are described for this dataset. The challenges and opportunities of instructing synchronous sections of systems engineering courses are discussed. Results may be used to develop best practices for instructors of Systems Engineering online coursework.