Assessment of challenges in virtual instruction quality and its relationship to learning outcomes and student satisfaction

This study examines whether the Framework to Assess Challenges in Virtual Education (FACVE), C1 dimension (challenges to virtual education quality), covering teaching quality, interaction, and assessment challenges, is associated with students' perceived learning outcomes and satisfaction. Self-reported survey data were collected from graduate business students at one of Peru's top universities between September 17, 2021, and February 6, 2022, following an initial emergency transition and during a stable term in which courses were delivered through institutionally standardized online modalities. Using PLS-SEM, FACVE-C1 was modeled as a higher-order construct, and its relationships with students' perceived learning outcomes (LO) and student satisfaction (SS) were estimated. Virtual instruction quality challenges were negatively related to perceived learning (β = −0.470; R² = 0.221) and to student satisfaction (β = −0.116), while perceived learning was strongly related to student satisfaction (β = 0.821; R² = 0.777). Among the FACVE-C1 components, interaction challenges contributed most strongly, indicating that strengthening student–instructor and student–student interaction structures is a high-leverage target in online graduate business education. The findings provide empirical support for FACVE-C1 as a parsimonious diagnostic lens for identifying quality-related constraints that shape students' experience and perceived learning in planned virtual instruction contexts.