By Daniel Wilson

January 31, 2025

A group of Sacramento State professors is researching how to close equity gaps and improve success rates in online STEM courses.

The team is redesigning several courses to see whether the changes improve students’ belief in their ability to succeed, as well as what impact those changes have on student performance.

In general, online and hybrid courses have a higher level of self-learning than in-person classes because they tend to be more self-paced, said project lead Praveen Meduri, an associate professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE).

“When an online course is not well-designed, a student taking that course may feel like they're completely on their own,” he said. “They just have those deadlines at the end of the semester, and then there's no structure. And that structure is what we are trying to bring in.”

The three-year research study, dubbed Project-SOAR – short for “Investigating Students' (S) Online self-efficacy (O), Academic performance (A) and course Redesign (R),” – began in September and is supported by a $344,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

“When a faculty member redesigns their course intentionally, students perceive this as a welcome thing, as a more approachable course. As a result, their self-belief in their ability to complete the course will be increased.” -- Praveen Meduri, associate professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Project-SOAR principal investigator

While its primary focus is on STEM courses, the team hopes to identify effective practices that can be implemented in any online course. Kevan Shafizadeh, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, said the data will be applicable universally because it is creating a greater understanding of how students approach these types of courses.

“Research has consistently shown the importance of self-efficacy in student success, and Project-SOAR offers a chance to deepen our understanding of how to foster this essential belief in students, especially in online settings,” he said. “This project is an example of how engineering education research can be used to address critical institutional priorities and advance knowledge in a way that benefits students, faculty and the wider University community.”

The course redesign utilizes a set of standards from Quality Matters (QM), a nonprofit online learning quality assurance program that reshapes classes in eight different areas, including experiences with mastering a subject, making sure work is rigorous and engaging and improving social interactions.

After students complete the redesigned courses, Meduri and a small group of multidisciplinary faculty look at surveys, questionnaires, quantitative and qualitative data and student feedback to compare course outcomes from before and after the changes.

Meduri said many STEM faculty are well-versed in technical and scientific knowledge, but those skills don’t always translate to an engaging and approachable online experience for students without an intentional effort to do so.

“This is contrary to the nation's urgent need for a strong and diverse workforce, and that's the reason why I think Project-SOAR addresses and fills an important knowledge gap about how to advance our understanding on quality online courses,” Meduri said. “When the faculty member spends a significant amount of time working for Quality Matters certification for their course, it is reasonable to expect that the student performance will be better.”

Meduri said much of that expectation comes from students’ perception of the courses.

“When a faculty member redesigns their course intentionally, students perceive this as a welcome thing, as a more approachable course,” Meduri said. “As a result, their self-belief in their ability to complete the course will be increased.”

Milica Markovic, EEE department chair, has high hopes that using QM will not only enhance academic performance but also boost STEM students’ confidence.

“The project’s focus on self-efficacy in QM-designed courses is both timely and transformative,” she said. “I’m excited about the broader impacts of this research, including faculty professional development.”

Excluding Meduri, Project-SOAR’s researchers are all women, which speaks to both the diversity of Sac State’s faculty and the need to close equity gaps in STEM, Meduri said. A significant number of the University’s researchers are women, he added.

“They have a way of inspiring other women to join STEM and pursue STEM,” he said.

Project-SOAR’s team includes Lynn Tashiro, Kelly McDonald, De-Laine Cyrenne, Lisa Romero, Mary McCarthy-Hintz and Michelle Dang.

The project also coincides with the University’s work to offer more online and hybrid courses. A recent $3 million U.S. Department of Education TECH4Equity grant, the fourth Sac State has received from the department’s Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions program since 2015, is supporting the redesign of 20 general education and 10 online engineering courses to improve pass rates and decrease equity gaps. Additionally, Meduri’s Project-ACE is reimagining several in-person EEE courses to increase engagement.

Project-SOAR is funded through the National Science Foundation’s Building Capacity in STEM Education Research program, which aims to broaden the pool of researchers who can advance knowledge regarding STEM learning and learning environments.

Updates on Project-SOAR are documented online, and Meduri said its results will be published in academic journals.

Meduri hopes improving student self-efficacy and making courses more engaging will remove barriers to student success by better aligning Sac State’s online STEM courses with those offered in-person.

“It is our primary responsibility as faculty members to ensure students get the bang for their buck when they are making significant sacrifices to come and invest in our degree,” he said. “It's much easier to facilitate an in-person discussion and student engagement than it is in an online environment, and for that reason, our already high failure rates and equity gaps are that much more pronounced in an online setting, necessitating more research in this area.”