Optimizing distance learning educational programs research project. Results and lesson learned from the conduction of university courses

Purpose Optimizing Distance Learning Educational Programs Research Project (ODLEP) aimed at increasing the performance of educational courses by creating the best students’ groups and assigning to them the most appropriate instructor. The present study sought to explore the link and correlation that may exist among the attributes and characteristics of students, their learning and teaching preferences with the course performance. Four questionnaires were constructed for the purpose of the study. Design/methodology/approach The ODLEP approach was implemented in the context of the provision of 12 university courses. The questionnaires captured the students' and instructors’ learning and teaching preferences and their personality traits and the final assessment of the courses conducted. A significant number of students from 12 different courses of the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum of the partnering universities participated in the survey. The responses were recorded in an SPSS database. Two types of analyses were performed. The first one involved descriptive statistics analysis and the second one involved correlation analysis using the crosstab method. Findings It became evident that the ODLEP approach led to optimized performance of the courses and specifically in the case where the groups of students were created and assigned to the optimum instructor based on personality traits, learning and teaching preferences. Originality/value It is the first time that a system creates collaborative groups of students and assign them to appropriate instructors based on psychometric test, learning and teaching preferences and multicriteria decision analysis.