Student retention in distance learning - tip of the ICEBERG

"our antarctica" (CC BY 2.0) by Christopher.Michel

A generalisation that simply won't go away is that online/distance courses have poor retention rates. This has often been used as evidence against online education and in some countries (such as here in Sweden) has lead to a reduction of online courses in favour of campus-based programmes. Basically drop-outs mean reduced income for the university so it's not surprising that they prefer the security of full-time campus studies. The often discussed low retention levels of MOOCs has fuelled this movement even more. However, this issue is much more complex than simply concluding that online education"doesn't work as well" as traditional campus education.

Students drop out of courses for a wide variety of reasons, often in combination. They may have no academic background and lack support and encouragement from friends and relatives. Many combine distance studies with full time work and family life resulting in tensions and stress that are often most easily resolved by dropping out. They may find the academic environment and terminology daunting and this increases their own feeling of inadequacy and feeling out of their depth. Their previous experience of education may be very negative resulting in a feeling or inferiority and lack of confidence. Many have little or no experience of online learning and lack the necessary study skills and digital literacy to adapt to the course requirements. Added to this are factors that concern the course itself. Many online courses are still basically self-study and this leads to feelings of isolation and the lack of support and teacher presence makes it all too easy to feel that nobody will notice if I simply drop out.

A colleague and I carried out a study a few years ago of the retention rates of campus and distance courses and degree programmes at our university and came to the conclusion that delivery form was not the main reason for students dropping out. We found distance courses and degree programmes with higher retention rates than their campus equivalents and also found distance courses with low rates. However what all courses and programmes with high retention rates had in common were course design factors: clear structure and course information, high levels of interaction and variety in the learning environment and good scaffolding.

The importance of course design for raising retention levels is highlighted in an excellent new article by Jitse van Ameijde, Martin Weller and Simon Cross from the Open University entitled Learning Design for Student Retention. They review existing literature in the field and report on a survey of students and staff from the Open University, resulting in the identification of seven key course design principles neatly gathered under the acronym ICEBERG. The definitions of these principles are best read in the article itself but here's a short summary.

• Integrated. A clear structure where all the activities and material clearly link to the learning outcomes and the student sees a purpose for every element. Constructive alignment in other words.
• Collaborative. Developing a supportive learning community and fostering meaningful interaction between students and teachers.
• Engaging. Course material that is relevant and meaningful to the students. A variety of activities and use of different media. Clear teacher presence showing enthusiasm and interest in students' progress.
• Balanced. Keeping a steady pace and manageable workload.
• Economical. Avoiding overloading students with too much information and useful material that isn't directly related to the learning outcomes of each course module.
• Reflective. Helping students to reflect on their learning process and offering frequent formative assessment activities.
• Gradual. A gradual process moving from simple to increasingly complex tasks as the course progresses including support at each stage.

These principles provide a useful framework for course design and could be developed further into a checklist for self-evaluation. The ICEBERG framework applies equally to all types of course, whether campus, online or blended. However, the article ends by pointing out that retention is not the only factor governing course design.

Similarly, retention is only one aspect that should be considered by course designers, and should not be at the expense of addressing complex topics, or implementing challenging pedagogy. However, it is the authors’ contention that retention is rarely given sufficient attention as a design principle in its own right, and it is a matter of increasing significance to students,educators, institutions and society. The proposed model then is a means of considering any course from the perspective of retention.

Reference
Van Ameijde, J., Weller, M., Cross, S. (2018) Learning Design for Student Retention. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice Vol 6 No 2. DOI https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v6i2.318.

On-site and online learning - different but equivalent

"Shortcuts" (CC BY 2.0) by MrBigCity

Online students are different to campus students and therefore online course must reflect these differences: they are older than most campus students, they tend to combine studies with work and family and they appreciate the flexibility of the online format. However, they are very similar in terms of their desire to learn, their need for social interaction, feedback, and a clear teacher presence. Strangely, these vital elements have been omitted from many online courses, despite the fact that there are platforms and tools that can provide that vital social element. Somehow it has been assumed that online learners are content with content-based self-study and as a result the whole field is viewed by many as a "next-best" option. This is discussed in an article by Sean Michael Morris in Inside Higher Ed, Online Learning Shouldn’t Be ‘Less Than’. Why should online learners be less interested in the social aspect of learning and be content with behaviourist content consumption?

But if online learning is more rudimentary, less nuanced, personal, complex than campus learning, that betrays an implicit assumption that so are online students. But “nontraditional” doesn’t mean unacademic. Online students are students like on-campus students. Just as curious, just as hopeful, just as genius, just as troubled, just as excited and unsure. Have we built, do we sustain, an online learning that embraces these students? Do our online courses actually accommodate them?

This simplistic model has even created a vicious circle where students often expect online courses to be relatively undemanding self-study and are therefore surprised and confused when they are asked to actively participate. Indeed many campus students try to cram in extra credits to their full time studies by also taking an online course, thinking that the extra course will not be so demanding. When they realise that the online course is just as demanding as the campus ones they are forced to drop out, unwittingly and ironically contributing to the argument that online learning has low completion rates.

Online courses demonstrate the university's commitment to lifelong learning and outreach, but the article asks if we are not short-changing our online learners by not offering the full university experience.

Which leads me to ask, do online courses accommodate students at all? Or do they cater primarily to an ideology of efficiency, retention, “student success” and numbers that institutions can report? Are online classes provided for learners, or are they intended to extend a university’s reach, its revenue-generating enterprise? Certainly if the latter, then the quality of online courses needs only meet that standard that students will tolerate for the sake of the credential, the carrot on the stick.

The point is that a university course demands a lot of the student in terms of engagement and commitment, regardless of whether it is delivered online or in a traditional setting. Online learning is neither a short-cut for the learner nor a cost-saving strategy for the university. It should certainly not be seen as a second-best, watered down version of the "real thing". Courses should be demanding, interactive, social, stimulating and challenging whatever the delivery method. The technology and pedagogy are there, we just have to use them.

Identity a major factor in online course completion

CC0 Public domain on Max Pixel

One of the key factors to course completion is identity; feeling that you belong to a group and are acknowledged as such. This sense of belonging is relevant both on campus and online but if it is not achieved the resulting isolation is more acute in online courses. In for-credit online courses where numbers are limited there are many strategies for creating an inclusive community for the students, see in particular Cynthia Clays’ 5 Principles for Maximum Engagement and Gilly Salmon’s five-stage-model for online learning. However in a MOOC with thousands of participants teacher contact becomes impractical but that doesn't mean that you can't create a sense of community anyway.

This is the subject of a new study by René Kizilcec and colleagues at Stanford University, according to an article on Stanford News, Brief interventions help online learners persist with coursework, Stanford research finds. They noted that participants from countries with a lower rating on the United Nations’ Human Development Index were less likely to complete a MOOC than those from countries higher up that index. There are several potential barriers here such as inadequate infrastructure, lack of  up-to-date devices or limited ability in English, but this study decided to look at the issue of social identity and a feeling of inadequacy when joining a course.

Kizilcec and others theorize that a psychological barrier contributes to the global gap in MOOCs, namely social identity threat, which is a fear of being seen as less competent because of a social identity. Research has demonstrated that social identity threat can impair a person’s working memory and academic performance.

Millions of people enroll in courses with low levels of self confidence that are often unintentionally reinforced by the way they are introduced to the course. Many are taking their first hesitant step into higher education with a strong built-in feeling that they are probably not good enough. Whenever they encounter unfamiliar terminology (especially academic terms) or unclear instructions their first reaction is something like "I knew I wasn't clever enough for this course" and unless they can get some support they are very likely to give up. This feeling is magnified if the course forum is full of confident and articulate native English speakers. It is vital that these learners get some positive reinforcement right at the start of the course.

The Stanford study tested pre-course activities where participants could write about how the course could support their most important values and allowed them to read testimonials from previous participants about how they overcame feelings of isolation at the beginning of the course and were able to succeed in the end. These activities did not require direct teacher interaction but simply giving learners the chance to state their own values and reflect over how to succeed in the course had a remarkable effect on the learners who otherwise were most likely to leave the course. The completion rate for learners from less developed countries was raised from 17% to 41%.

“It is an impressive result which suggests that social identity threat can be a barrier to performance in international learning contexts, even in online environments with little social interaction,” Kizilcec said. “It goes to show that a small change to the online experience can have profound and lasting effects if it influences people’s perceptions of an environment.”

This confirms how vital it is to create an welcoming and supportive course introduction and to offer learners a chance to reflect on their own values and objectives before starting. Course information must be as inclusive and clear (jargon-free) as possible and a variety of tools and strategies can be used to help everyone identify with the course and feel part of it. Online questionnaires like the ones used in this study are one way but others can be allowing learners to create study groups in their own languages or with people from the same region. Short personal and encouraging weekly video messages from the teachers can also help to create a sense of belonging. Often the difference between drop-out and completion can be a few kind words of encouragement.

Online learning - where now?

"Helpful signpost" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Stan160

At this time of year my news feeds dry up as most people in the business take their summer break so maybe it's a good time for me to take stock and reflect on the status of online learning today and speculate on future developments. I've been working with online learning for around twelve years now and whilst there has indeed been significant progress in some aspects we still get bogged down in the same discussions and preconceptions as we did when I started in 2004. Here's a list of recurring themes on this blog that I'm really getting tired of discussing (in no particular order).

Polarised either /or discussions

We are still trapped in endless discussions about whether online education is better or worse than traditional classroom education or whether e-books are better than print and so on. These discussions seldom lead anywhere except further entrenchment. Tony Bates outlines a much better approach in his current series of blog posts on online learning, see for example Online learning for beginners: 2. Isn’t online learning worse than face-to-face teaching? Most comparisons fail to compare like with like (ie same types of students with similar needs) and seldom see that the two modes suit different types of learners (young full-time campus students and older lifelong learners). The eternal debate on completion rates ignores the fact that distance learners have completely different life situations compared to full-time campus students who generally complete their courses regardless of the quality, simply because their funding depends on them passing. Generally these types of comparisons ask the wrong questions, see more below.

Traditional education as default

The burden of proof is overwhelmingly on the online side whilst few people investigate whether traditional methods really work as well as we think. Are classrooms always the best place for an open discussion when we know so well that these discussions favour those who like the spotlight and those who like to reflect before answering and feel intimidated in a group setting never say anything? Lectures have been central to higher education for centuries but does that mean that we learn from them? What types of learning do we test in exam halls? I would like to see an end to the burden of proof syndrome and instead accept that we need to integrate face-to-face and online to offer more nuanced approaches to education.

Asking the wrong questions

The fact that we're still falling into the traps in the previous points means that we keep asking the wrong questions. It's not about delivery method, technical platform or old versus new it's about designing education that can reach out to and empower as many learners as possible using all the tools, methods and pedagogies available today (including the traditional ones!). Once again Tony Bates offers two key questions for us to focus on:

Indeed, it is the variables or conditions for success that we should be examining, not just the technological delivery. In other words, we should be asking a question first posed by Wilbur Schramm as long ago as 1977:
What kinds of learning can different media best facilitate, and under what conditions?

In terms of making decisions then about mode of delivery, we should be asking, not which is the best method overall, but:
What are the most appropriate conditions for using face-to-face, blended or fully online learning respectively? 

One size does not fit all and the traditional system has failed millions of learners by only offering face-to-face education often at a price and only in certain locations. How can we offer more inclusive and personalised education by using the full spectrum of tools and methods available today? Getting the mix right and focusing on course design are what we need to work on today.

"The next big thing" syndrome

Every time a new device, app or tool hits the market the hype machine revs into action and soon we're drowning in posts and articles on how Google Apps/MOOCs/iPads/Facebook Live/Pokemon go/xxxx will revolutionise education. The revolution isn't going to happen but they all contribute to an evolution. The problem is that the commercial hype only increases the skepticism of many educators and prevents them from investigating the new phenomena with an open mind. As a result new technologies and methods are restricted to an edtech echo-chamber and have limited impact to the mainstream. I would like to see less hype and fireworks and more genuine curiosity and investigation before we make any claims about revolutions or disruption.

Structural barriers and the power of tradition

Many who want to be innovative are stifled by structural barriers and tradition. The increasing focus on results and accountability stifles innovation as institutions play safe to avoid failure, The tyrany of rankings mean that you focus on the criteria that help you rise in the ranking system and ignore those that do not, ie research versus teaching, campus versus distance etc, The traditional image of the university as a leafy campus full of young full-time students and high profile research is extremely hard to break, as most university websites show. Pedagogical innovation, outreach and lifelong learning simply don't win any gold stars and until they do we seem to be stuck in a mold, even though there are, of course, exceptions.

Even students can be barriers to innovation. They have been brought up on the traditional image of the university and actually expect the lectures and student life that they have seen so much in films and TV series. A teacher who abandons the traditional methods and is innovative can risk poor evaluations from students who expect to be taught (ie lectured to). 

Where do we go from here then? I don't see any radical changes in the near future but we need to get online into the mainstream and do it by asking new questions and simply not responding to either/or discussions. There are encouraging signs of a more integrated and nuanced aproach to online learning with several major international organisations taking the lead (UNESCO, OECD, European Commission, EUA and others). There are now many excellent reports, initiatives and funding schemes from these and other organisations and there are plenty of enthusiastic educators involved in projects. The barriers tend to appear in the space between these two extremes: governments, national authorities and educational leaders. For bottom-up to connect with top-down you need to work on getting the middle layers on board.

How would you like your course?

CC0 Public Domain on Pixabay

Pretty well every MOOC provider today builds in some kind of arena for interaction and collaboration and although many participants still operate in self-study mode there are many who see the course as a networking opportunity and simply learn better in the company of peers. Interaction and collaboration have long been seen as the key to raising the completion rates in MOOCs. The problem is that we all have our own preferences when it comes to interaction; some enjoy synchronous video or audio meetings whilst other prefer asynchronous chat or discussion threads. We also have cultural differences in how willing we are to discuss with strangers and seeing learning as a collaborative process. Add to this the linguistic difficulties many non-native English speakers experince especially when entering an advanced academic discussion with highly eloquent native speakers. Just offering an arena and hoping people will discuss simply doesn't work. But maybe if we first ask the participants how they would like to learn?

A new study from Penn State University, highlighted in an article on Campus Technology, Grouping MOOC Students by Communication Mode Doesnt Help Completion, offered MOOC participants a choice of how they would like to interact with peers in their MOOC and put them into study groups according to those preferences.

A team of seven researchers undertook an examination of participants in a Penn State MOOC, "Creativity, Innovation and Change," which was delivered on Coursera and drew 200,000 people from 190 countries in 2013 and 2014. Volunteers in the course were asked to fill out a pre-course survey online to provide demographic information and designate their learning preferences: Did they prefer to be part of a group that used asynchronous text posts, synchronous text chats, or synchronous video and audio as their primary channels for communication?

The results were not particularly encouraging as far as raising completion rates was concerned but the study does offer new insights into interaction preferences. For example participants over 40 were more likely to complete the course than younger participants and female participants were more interested in study groups than males. Further study in more courses will hopefully be made.

Statistically significant relationships were found between learners’ preferred communication modes and their level of English proficiency, gender, level of education, and age. Although placing learners in groups based on their preferences and introducing them to each other did not improve course performance or completion, our findings on preferred communication modes, combined with more formal instruction of how to function as group members may prove to enhance learning and engagement in MOOCs.

Since MOOCs are free and without formal demands it is unlikely that completion rates will ever be particularly high but I'm sure that creating a sense of community is a key factor to helping more participants stay the course. One area that needs to be developed is not just asking about collaboration preferences but providing support on collaborative literacy. Many people simply don't know how to work collaboratively, especially online and some kind of pre-course guide on how to get the most out of your course followed by a choice of participation options could help a lot. Study groups could be offered around synchronous or asynchronous interaction, self-study, geographic location, native language or a mix. Can we somehow offer supportive and safe study groups as a complement to massive openness then maybe that will lead to more people benefitting from this type of education.

Reference

Exploring the communication preferences of MOOC learners and the value of preference-based groups: Is grouping enough? Qing Zhang, Kyle L. Peck , Adelina Hristova, Kathryn W. Jablokow, Vicki Hoffman, Eunsung Park, Rebecca Yvonne Bayeck.  Educational Technology Research and Development pp 1-29 (March 2016).

Beyond edtech skepticism

   by Robert S. Donovan

Online learning has still not come of age in terms of faculty acceptance and the concerns of 10 years ago live on; completion rates, absence of human contact, academic depth etc. Old truths or half-truths die hard in the academic world and this is brought home by an article in Inside Higher Ed Online Ed Skepticism and Self-Sufficiency: Survey of Faculty Views on Technology, which summarises the views of around 3,000 university teachers and educational technologists around the USA. Despite the advances in online learning and the MOOC explosion of recent years, the majority of faculty still believe that online courses are inferior to classroom teaching. Not surprisingly the most negative attitudes to online education came from teachers with little or no experience of the field. The more experienced they were the more positive attitudes prevailed, but even among the experienced teachers there was a deep concern about the lack of meaningful interaction.

Virtually all faculty members and technology administrators say meaningful student-teacher interaction is a hallmark of a quality online education, and that it is missing from most online courses.

Here is a curious paradox in the use of technology in education. There are hundreds of tools and services available that directly facilitate increased interaction and collaboration, both synchronously and asynchronously, yet most online courses fail to exploit these and continue to be largely text-based, content delivery with little space for interaction. Even if there is a wealth of research and practice showing that they keys to student retention are creating a sense of community, fostering multimodal collaboration and interaction and providing timely support, many choose to continue with basic e-learning 1.0. Indeed over 90% of the respondents say high-quality online courses provide meaningful interaction between instructors and students, so why do so few measure up to that? The bad reputation of the past is still used as an excuse not to get involved or not to fully explore the potential of today's online education. In the article Ronald Legon, executive director of the Quality Matters Program, says:

..  My general reaction is that the data show that the more exposure a faculty member has had to online or blended learning, the more positive their view ... But, clearly, not all faculty have seen the potential of online learning to match and even exceed the effectiveness of face-to-face learning, because they have not had the opportunity to become familiar with best practices and research-driven course design and delivery.

We also need to look more carefully at what actually goes on in the classroom and whether the interaction there is as good as we imagine. How many students actively contribute to a class discussion and how many say nothing? How interactive and challenging are our classes and lectures and could some discussions be more interactive online, especially if we make use of video and audio to supplement text communication? So many online environments are completely text-based and this one-dimensionality puts many students at a disadvantage. More opportunities for using video and audio in discussion rooms gives everyone a voice and makes the communication more personal.

I sometimes feel that many conveniently dismiss online education as second-rate due to outdated information and without really investigating current research and best practice. Once again I must stress the need to stop making unnecessary comparisons and really look at how technology can be used to enhance all learning, wherever it takes place.

The MOOC debate reaches calmer waters

 by lanier67

“I don’t see the MOOC that I teach as a threat to traditional universities or to the discipline, rather just the opposite. It’s the sort of thing a public university should be doing: broadcasting its knowledge.”

This quote from Dr. Matt McGarrity of the University of Washington in an article on e-Learning Industry, University of Washington instructor dives into MOOC spotlight, sums up what I believe is the essence of the MOOC movement. Most universities are funded by public money, at least to some extent, and all have policies for outreach activities and involvement with the society they serve. Allowing the world access to the course material they use is part of this outreach and a way of showing the taxpayers what they're paying for. As I've written many times I don't think that MOOCs are so much a threat to education as an extremely welcome complement, offering new groups of students access to new paths for learning. These courses can have varying degrees of pedagogical innovation, some will work and others will flop, but they will make higher education more accessible than ever before, whether or not any credits are available from them.

Another quote in this interview with McGarrity that I liked was this one about the MOOC dropout rate:

"To some degree, so much of the talk about dropout rate misinterprets the initial enrollment figure, right? The threshold one must cross to sign up for the course is a button click. So they’re talking about the button click, which may not be a genuine enrollment. It’s like Facebook accounts—maybe there are so many million, but a lot of them are empty. So, the question is of those enrollments, is active students from Week 1 to Week 10. That’s probably a better way to look at it."

We should be looking at how many students completed the course and focus on that rather than those who "dropped out". Many of the dropouts probably never even dropped in: they simple clicked on the enroll button and forgot about it. If 1,000 people complete the course that's pretty impressive and what happened to the other 4,000 is probably not so relevant. It certainly can't be compared with dropping out of a campus course that has cost you a lot of money and is a major life commitment - something has to be seriously wrong to drop out of a 4-year degree program.

It's good to read more and more realistic and thoughtful views on the whole MOOC movement. Maybe we're moving out of the initial hype phase.

Completion rates in online education

  by  JF Sebastian

I'm concerned that we continue to discuss the issue of low completion rates in online courses and see the online delivery form as the problem. Lower completion rates are seen as evidence that online education is inherently inferior to the traditional classroom model and that we must simply accept it as "the next best thing". By using terminology such as distance learning, e-learning and net learning we accept that this type of education is a sub category of the wider concept of "learning" which normally takes place in a classroom with teacher and students in the same physical room. Online learning is assumed to be mostly self-study and students lack the dynamic discussion and interaction of a live classroom. I think the vast majority of teachers and especially academic decision makers still think this is true and see educational technology as something only relevant to so-called distance learning. However the factors behind high completion rates are the same regardless of whether the course is on campus or completely online; namely social interaction, a sense of belonging and a supportive learning environment.

A new article by Jacqueline Aundree Baxter of the UK's Open University in IRRODL (International review of research in open and distance learning),Who am I and what keeps me going? Profiling the distance learning student in higher education, links the issue of completion rates to factors such as group dynamics, teamwork and the teacher's role as mentor and facilitator.

"The research revealed insights into factors linked to the expectations, identities, and support of students which proved influential in terms of their resilience and motivation to remain on course."

It's interesting to read how most students in this study expected their course to be mostly self-study and were positively surprised when online collaboration was expected of them. Here the popular image of online education affects student expectations. Every student will bring with her/him their own preconceptions, fears, insecurities and previous academic experience and the success of each student depends on establishing a sense of belonging, a supportive environment and a can-do attitude. Students have widely varying levels of experience in online collaboration and some may feel inadequate at first. The teacher's role of setting the tone and providing reassurance to the hesitant is crucial in the early stages.

"Expectations and beliefs about work and study roles have been found to be important in the retention of students and professionals. Initial expectations which are not well managed can lead to a sense of let-down and erosion of confidence and feelings of agency, which if not addressed lead rapidly to attrition."

Some of the key factors described in the article for boosting completion rates, regardless of delivery form, are:

• Creating realistic expectations and a clear structure from the outset. The teacher's role in this is crucial.
• Reducing factors that make students doubt and increasing factors that make students want to stay .
• Building a sense of community is essential and, once established, students will support and encourage each other to continue even when the going gets tough.
• Timely teacher interventions when students feel inadequate to the task in hand are worth their weight in gold.

It's not the form of the course that is crucial. It's not about campus versus distance or dividing education into convenient compartments. It's about creating a sense of belonging where students learn how to learn in a supportive environment and where no one ever needs to feel they're on their own. This environment can be created and facilitated with the help of educational technology but it can also be created in a more traditional classroom environment. The basic ingredients are the same and it's that we should be discussing more. Let's talk about learning and take the e- as default.

Only a paper moon?

We've had at least 15 years of net-based learning in universities and the numbers of online students rises year by year. Today most campus courses rely on the net for distribution of course material, discussion, assignments and information and the university's accounting, HR and other administrative routines are all computerised. So we should be able to say that technology affects every process in higher education.

However, despite the omnipresence of technology in academia it is still not fully accepted. This is stated most clearly in an excellent article in Campus Technology, Ad Hockery and the Potemkin Effect in Higher Ed IT. It's based on a presentation given by Kenneth C.Green at the recent Campus Technology 2011 conference. Universities today offer a host of online courses but often with very little support for teachers or students and that's why Waters refers to the Potemkin effect - courses are just flat facades with nothing behind them. Little wonder then that the drop-out rate is high.

The problem is often that top management have little understanding of how technology impacts education  and tend to delegate responsibility for online learning to IT managers, believing still that this is purely a technology issue and not a pedagogical one. Teachers do their best to support each other and often provide student support over and above the call of duty but in many universities there are far too many such ad hoc solutions that cover up for the lack of an overall strategic approach. Universities need to build an infrastructure behind the facade.

"The faculty need support," he said. "They're not ancillary to this conversation but central to it. And we need to communicate with presidents and provosts about the value of that support--about how critical it is, that it's part of the infrastructure--so we don't have Potemkin campuses." 

Photo:
by kathleenie 

Campus or distance?

We still tend to see campus-based courses and distance courses as two separate worlds. The former is seen as having higher status since students and teachers meet face-to-face every day and there is a high degree of interaction. The latter is seen as a poor relation where students sit alone with their computers with only a discussion forum or e-mail to interact with faculty or fellow students. The stereotype online course is basically a traditional correspondence course and therefore no surprise that the success rates on such courses are generally rather low.

  by  Andrew Scott 

This is however a sadly stereotyped view and if you look more closely the boundaries get seriously blurred. Many universities have extremely large classes in the first two undergraduate years and the standard teaching model is the good old lecture, often one way communication with audiences over 100. How much interaction is involved there? How much learning takes place in the lecture hall? Isn't the lecture hall a case of distance learning? Is there any great difference between sitting in the lecture hall with 100 other students or watching the performance later on my laptop? This point is well described by Paul Hillsdon in an article called Why universities should ditch the lecture and go digital. Although there will always be room for inspired lecturing and some performances are best viewed live, there are still far too many that are niether inspiring nor interactive.

The real benefit of campus is being able to participate in seminars and tutorials in smaller groups where real discussion and reflection can take place. That is the most crucial element of all education and that is where real learning and insight can occur. However many cash-strapped universities have cut back on this, the one real trump card the campus model possesses. Many students complain that teacher contact hours have been cut over the last few years and as a result many campus students have alarmingly little "quality" teaching time apart from the customary lectures. In such cases you may start to wonder if some campus students are actually involved in "distance" learning. A good deal of my own student years were glorified self study to be quite honest.

At the same time we are seeing an increasing amount of online courses making use of various social media to increase the amount of interaction and discussion and ironically many "distance students" have much higher quality interaction with teachers and other students than many of their campus counterparts.

Campus students tolerate lack of contact and mass lectures because they are full-time and their loans and grants are dependent on them passing exams and staying the course. Part-time distance students are not so committed and will drop out if the course is not engaging enough. It's not a campus-distance problem, it's all about quality and in particular quality of interactivity. Courses that offer plenty of quality interaction between students and teachers will always retain student interest, whether they're online or on campus. The difference shouldn't matter.

Tune in, turn on, drop out?

Whenever the subject of distance learning is discussed at higher levels at my university and undoubtedly many others the troubled issue of drop-out rates comes up. Most universities have some form of distance learning today but it has mostly been treated as a kind of second-rate solution compared to traditional campus courses with classroom teaching. One of the main reasons for it not being taken too seriously by decision makers is the fact that many such courses seem to have a rather high drop-out rate and therefore don't generate as much income for the university as full-time campus students.

  by  Hermés 

So why do these distance students "drop out"? Are they simply not good enough to complete the course or overestimate their capacity for combining work, family and study? Or are our courses simply not engaging enough and students drop out due to unclear structure, lack of support or boredom? All these factors are involved but the main reason for the problem is more the fact that distance students are very different from traditional campus students. Universities are built around the campus concept where the norm is students between 19 and 25 studying full time and reliant on study loans or stipendia. Throughput on campus courses is naturally pretty high since failure means no more income.

Distance students on the other hand are generally over 25 and study part-time without study loans. They work, have families and homes to look after and see distance learning as part of their professional development. Many do overestimate their ability to find time for study in their already hectic lives and drop out when it gets too much. Not completing a course will not have any serious effect on their lives apart from losing the course fee. In Sweden all higher education is free so you lose nothing by dropping out. In some cases the university doesn't even notice that you've gone. Many distance students study out of pure interest and often fail to even take the course exam since they only want the knowledge not the certificate.

Distance students have a clearly different profile so why do nearly all universities still aim websites and brochures clearly at the campus students when distance students make up a significant proportion of their student base? Pictures of smiling young students studying on campus lawns or in libraries abound but you very seldom see middle aged people at home or in career situations.

The problem at my university and many others is that distance students simply don't generate as much income as campus students. Distance students generally take short part-time courses and generally 4-8 distance students generate the same income for the university as one full-time campus undergraduate. Attracting students to full-time study is therefore the prime focus and distance students then provide a useful supplement.

In Sweden universities are granted a certain sum of money per registered student and then a further sum for each student who completes the course. Drop-out rates are therefore carefully monitired. I have spoken to teachers responsible for courses with a very low official throughput and they say that students often take their time on the course assignments. They seldom complete the course on time and some may not hand in their final assignments until almost a year after the end of the course. The final throughput of a course may well be over 80% but that never shows up in the statistics.

What we need is for more universities to recognize this important and fast-growing student segment by building up an organisation around "continuing education" and focusing on distance students' needs rather than trying to handle them in the same way as full-time campus students. Quality criteria for online courses must be developed and the success of such courses should be assessed seperately from campus. At the moment we're simply comparing apples with pears and this only leads to simplistic conclusions.