From Course Design to Student Experience: Student Perceptions of Quality in Online Learning

Introduction While formal design standards and evaluation frameworks assess online course quality, they may not fully capture students’ lived experiences of course design. Student perceptions are therefore an important complement to structural evaluation. This study examined students’ perceptions of selected Quality Matters (QM)-aligned design practices and their relationships with belonging, instructor caring, satisfaction, technological barriers, and performance.Methods Undergraduate students enrolled in online courses at a Research 1 U.S. institution were surveyed during the 2023–2024 academic year, yielding 859 responses across 256 courses. Twenty-three items adapted from the QM Higher Education Rubric assessed students’ perceived course quality. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U tests using a cutoff adapted from the QM certification threshold, and multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine relationships between student perceptions of course quality and outcomes.Results Students generally perceived course quality practices as present; however, perceptions varied across different course design dimensions, with structural and organizational practices reported most consistently. Across analyses, greater perceived presence of QM-aligned design practices was associated with higher levels of instructor caring, satisfaction, and belonging, along with fewer perceived barriers and slightly higher grades. Although structural and organizational practices were reported as the most prevalent QM-aligned practices, the strongest relationships with outcomes were observed for practices related to assessment, instructional materials, and learning activities and interaction.Discussion The findings suggest that examination of online course quality should move beyond verifying whether design features are present to considering how students experience these features as they progress through a course.