Abstract

With the development of educational technology, undergraduate students are presented with the opportunities to enroll in online university courses. The students recognize the advantages of studying from the comfort of the place of their choice and at their own productive time. However, online students may feel their interest and desire to study online decreases over time. Researchers argue that the online environment can be a big enabler of teachers’ creativity which can be the best solution to motivational issues and dropout. This thesis reports a qualitative case study that explores students’ understanding and perception of online teachers’ creativity and how it influences their motivation to learn in asynchronous online courses. Concordia’s undergraduate students who enrolled in and experienced the Discover Statistics course were invited to participate in this study.
Seventeen student participants shared their experience during one online one-on-one interview each and completed the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich & DeGroof, 1990). The findings identify six main themes: positive experience in the course, negative experience in the course, definition of creativity and creative teaching, creative teaching strategies, positive comparison with other classes and motivational effects. Answering the main question of the research, it was concluded that this course includes multiple creative strategies, such as gamification, authentic examples, different approaches to explanations, repetitive practical problems, and self-assessment among all. These strategies positively affect participants’ motivation to learn.