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Does Personality Type Effect Online Versus In-Class Course Satisfaction?

Abstract

This study seeks to determine if different personality types express more or less satisfaction with courses delivered online versus those delivered in the classroom. Methodology employs two online sruveys - the Kiersey Temperment Sorter(KTS) and a course satisfaction instrument. The four hyptheses are that (H1) Introvert, (H2)Intuition, (H3)Thinking and (H4) Perceiving personalities express greater satisfactioin with online courses than (H1)Extrovert, (H2)Sensing, (H3)Feeling, and (H4) Judging personalities. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the study.

Description

The study seeks to determine if different personality types express more or less satisfaction with courses delivered online versus those delivered in the classroom. The study is an ongoing study from which preliminary results will be available by December.

The methodology for this study employs two online surveys. The first survey is the Kiersy Temperment Sorter (KTS). This survey sorts each respondent into a personality type based on four dimensions. The four dimensions are: Extrovert / Introvert; Sensing / Intuition; Thinking / Feeling, and; Judging / Perceiving. The second survey was a course satisfaction instrument developed by the authors of the current study. The course satisfaction instrument measures students' satisfaction with aspects of the course such as interaction, feedback, amount of information, and assessment procedures. Results of the KTS and responses to the course satisfaction instrument were analyzed to determine if there was a correlation between personality type and course satisfaction.

The surveys are linked from the study home page: http://www.coe.usouthal.edu/bset/idd/research/.

We began this study with the following four hypotheses:

• Students with predominately Introvert personalities will express greater satisfaction with online courses than students with predominately Extrovert personalities
• Students with predominately Intuition personalities will express greater satisfaction with online courses than students with predominately Sensing personalities
• Students with predominately Thinking personalities will express greater satisfaction with online courses than students with predominately Feeling personalities
• Students with predominately Perceiving personalities will express greater satisfaction with online courses than students with predominately Judging personalities
• Subjects were college students in both online and in class courses. Online courses were in web-based format and were developed using a commercial course management system. Both graduate and undergraduate courses students were from various courses offered by the college of education. Not all of the courses had both in class and online sections.

This study is important for three reasons. First, as colleges make greater use of online courses, it will be useful to know which personality types express satisfaction with online courses. Students from personality groups with low satisfaction may wish to avoid online courses or may require special attention. Second, instructors will be able to use this information to identify and modify areas of online courses that have low satisfaction ratings for different personality groups. Third, this study will serve as the basis for other research by the authors into the area of satisfaction with online courses.

In this session, the presenters will describe the methodology used in the study, provide an overview of the preliminary results, discuss the preliminary results in detail using both descriptive and inferential statistics, and describe the future directions of their research. Handouts and access to the study's online results page will be provided. Session attendees will be encouraged to share their ideas and comments.

References

Berens, L. V., & Nardi, D. (1999) The 16 Personality Types, Descriptions for Self-Discovery. New York: Telos.

Keirsey Temperament Sorter http://www.davideck.com/links/keirsey1.html

Quenk, N. L. (1999)/ Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment (Essentials of Psychological Assessment Series). New York: John Wiley.

Temperament Defined http://www.advisorteam.com/keirsey_about.html