This is a piece of my own research I conducted with Teri St. Pierre and others that is very relevant to designing YourPace courses. To understand the experience of academically high achieving working mothers in distance education, we interviewed and observed six students as they participated in their distance education courses during the pandemic. A discourse analysis approach was utilized to analyze the data. This extreme sample revealed several strategies that these students used to be successful despite their challenges.
The findings suggest that understanding the experiences of distance learners as they study in the home are important for effective course design. More specifically, working mothers face significant distractions in their study environments, but the cognitive load can be reduced by making use of their prior knowledge, scaffolding instruction, and encouraging social presence. Additional strategies from the literature that address these constructs are provided for instructors and instructional designers.
Read the full study here:
Fensie, A., St. Pierre, T., Jain, J., & Sezen-Barrie, A. (2023). Engaged learning during distraction: A case study of successful working moms in distance education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 36, 1–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-023-09359-0