Research Exploration: Research Gap

I just turned in my first ever literature review. In it, I was able to build a research-based foundation for principles of technical communication. I was also able to find instances in online courses where technical communication principles make a difference. I didn’t see anything asking online instructors about how they utilize those technical communication principles in course design. 

My research is looking to fill that gap. I want to conduct a qualitative study where I interview online instructors at my local university about how they design their courses and whether they consider principles of technical communication when they do so. 

I’ve organized the principles I want to focus on in this chart:

Table 1.1: Technical Communication Goals That Apply To Online Instruction

Helping users find information

Helping users understand information

Usability Testing

Course Organization

Information Organization

Remediation

Plain Language

Effective use of visuals


Instructors might not be familiar with this terminology, but I suspect they will understand the concepts I seek to learn about as I ask them questions utilizing plain language of my own.


I hope to gain a better understanding of what teachers take into consideration when designing courses. If I see any patterns or gaps in areas that could help students, I can take that information to my university’s learning design team and online instructor training specialists. They could then see if that research could be used to efficiently improve training materials for course design to result in better student outcomes.

Comments

  1. aOctober 9, 2023 at 6:41 PM

    I really like the direction you're taking your research! I agree that applying technical writing principles to courses (especially online ones) would be useful. If you decide to carry out your primary research, I'd love to help in any way I can!

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