Predictions for success in online courses.
Todd M. Abramovitz
Assistant Professor, CCBC Essex
Student in the ISTC Graduate Program, TowsonUniversity.
Abstract:
Introduction:
Literature Review:
- Adult learning Theory, The Classic Adult learnerStudent Motivation and Engagement
- First and second Generation students
- Cognitive and Learning Styles
- Communication and Community
- Generation of learners, Gender Issues, at risk students and Disabilities
- Emotional learning
- Student visibility
- Course design reflects student skills assessment.
- Part time learners
- Student retention and their skillsStudent Satisfaction and success
Methodology
Sample and data collection
Abstract
It is widely accepted that online courses are a viable option for learning,but why are they more effective for some learners than for others? In 1999, during the infancy of online learning, Hall(Golas, 2000) noted that in some experiments that directly compared online learning with traditional instruction, students learn just as effectively, or in some cases more effectively than students in a traditional classroom.However, there are many factors thathave an effect on a student’s motivation to take an online course and in result affect their respective attitude and approach toward the course. Individual learning preferences to include learning style, Mind Style, and personality type that are based on a student's age, gender, and upbringing effect their approach and aptitude that affect motivation and furthermore success. In the educational research, studies have not found a significant difference in success rates between online delivery and face to face delivery related to student success, but there is a perception that the difference is great and that students’ taking online courses must have different specificskills or competencies in order to be successful. It is varying levels of competencies such as traditional reading, writing, visual, and technical literacy that factor into the overall success of the student in either of the two learning environments. Students who have poor reading and writing skills will have the same challenges and overwhelming feelings toward online courses where a face-to-face courses will offer them visual interaction support,support from other students and instructor, and the auditory delivery of information is necessary for a student to have success.
Students who have inadequate computer literacy affects face-to-face technology based courses and online courses. Students’ in technology based courses and online courses must be able to navigate the computer system in order to attain course information and reply/comply to requirements of the course. For some students such as digital immigrants and technophobes, this is a serious barrier that would affect the students’ perceived or evident success level. To this, literacy and emotional factors play a role in the approach and motivation for each student. It is students’ perceived and evident inadequacies in any of these areas canresult indissatisfaction with online and face-to-facecourses increasing barriersto learning.
This paper looks at the students skills and competencies, learning style preferences, and cognitive approaches to learning that help predict whether a student will have success in an online class. By comparing the successful face-to-face learners with the successful online learners, it will be possible to identify key modes of learning and competencies to lead to success and the transitions that a face-to-face learner would need to make in order to raise potential of success in an online course.
Introduction:
In education today, there is a high mortality rate for students completing online courses. In addition to high student mortality rates, students who are completing courses are not producing with grades to meet their personal expectations and in many cases failing grades are the results of their efforts or lack there of. There becomes a perception about the validity and quality of online courses for the non-traditional and adult learner that is negative. Student dissatisfaction of online courses has three parts, the online program support by administration, course design and faculty delivery, and student approach to the course. This paper will reflect on the qualities of the student. Based on the adult learners’age, gender, race, generation in college, student understanding of their learning style, personality type, writing confidence, technology skills, ethics, and personal motivation; an evaluation of these skills and cognition will provide minimum levels or combinations of competencies that are realistic goals for students to reach in order to be successful in the online environment.Many colleges today believe that there is a particular type of student that can be successful in online courses. Each of the colleges have advertisements to their online programs/courses that state that each student must possess a minimum ability and understanding to the online approach in order to be successful. College 1 states that students mustbe self motivated, Interaction must take place in order to diminish isolation felt by those who do not speak up, introverts vs. extroverts, a commitment of at least 9 hours per week, Participate by logging on once a day and not procrastinate, have a computer with an internet connection, a good writing ability, and a good rapport with the instructor so that questions and concerns can be asked immediately when running into problems and the instructor can provide guidance and personalized communication. The Illinois Online Network, (ion) states that students should have the ability to be open minded about sharing experiences as part of the learning process, be able to communicate through writing, be self motivated and self disciplined, willing to speak up if problems arise, willing to commit 4 to 15 hours per week to the course, be able to meet the minimum requirements of the program, accept critical thinking and decision making as part of the learning process, have access to a computer with internet access, be able to think ideas through before responding, and feel that high quality learning can take place without going to a traditional class. In this this 3rd example, college 3, states on their web site for online students that not all students do well in online courses. Furthermore, to be successful they describe self-discipline, Motivation, Independence, self-reliance, Drive, and Resourcefulness as the key elements to being successful. Many colleges share this perspective on the description of what key elements a student must have to be successful.
Review of Literature:
During the infancy of online learning, Hall (1999) noted that in some experiments that directly compared online learning with traditional instruction, that students learn just as effectively, or in some cases more effectively than students in a traditional classroom.The web lends itself to student centered learning activities and encourages the learners to be active learners and find relationships between the content and real world situations (Golas, 2000). Golas states based on Siegel and Kirkeley (1997), that the expert learner’s rich fabric of meaning, or schema, does not come from acquiring a single strand of knowledge but from weaving together relationships among topics into a complex and synthetic whole. Similarly, the constructivism suggests that truly comprehensive understanding of a complex topic comes from learners stitching together the facts, relationships, perspectives, variations, and non-examples from an array of contextually rich inputs. The student in these cases is required to put together content from a variety of sources in the form of an analysis. This aspect requires a level of cognition and lends itself to specific types of understanding of learning styles of the student. Dr. Anthony F. Gregorc is the creator of the Mind Styles Model and the originator of four style types, concrete sequential (CS), Abstract Sequential (AS), Abstract Random (AR), and Concrete Random (CR). The Gregorc model is a cognitive model designed to reveal two types of abilities, perception and ordering. Perceptual abilities, the means through which information is grasped, translate into two qualities: abstractness and concreteness. Ordering abilities are the ways the learner organizes information, either sequentially (linearly) or randomly (non-linearly). Students with a concrete-sequential dominant learning-style tend to prefer programmed instruction, workbooks, lab manuals, field trips, and applications. Students with an abstract-sequential dominant learning-style tend to prefer lectures, books, syllabi, and guided individual study. Students with a concrete-random learning style prefer independent study, games, simulations, and problem solving, while students with an abstract-random learning style prefer television, movies, assignments with reflection time, and group discussions (Gregorc, 1984). In addition to this model, learning styles play a significant role in learning that goes beyond the surface appearance. The relationship between and among specific stylistic characteristics and the underlying forces can give an astute student of style and means of coming to understand some of the hidden forces behind individual differences and some of the subtle demands built into media and in environments(Gregorc, 1984). Gregorc continues to state, “we observed both in-class and out-of-class behaviors and approaches to study used by youthful and adult learners who received A’s in various courses. We noted that some students took extensive notes; some did not. Some reviewed notes and read assigned text materials and articles each night; others crammed just prior to the exams. Some practiced particular skills routinely and other occasionally… this interest transformed itself into an investigation on style”.
The classic adult students are often self-directed. The adult who is a non-tradition student or returning student is self directedand takes the initiative for their learning and sets goals and evaluates learning outcomes. Furthermore, the adult online learner wants to be aware how they will be assessed and how the instructor will interact with them (Winterstein, 2005).Involvement in the course and their approach is personally motivated. In the Adult learning cases Winterstein states that there are different categories that factor a student’s motivation to take a course, such as, online learning as a correct choice, technical preparedness, and how the learning environment is presented. The adult student will choose course based on their ability to perceived online learning environment and the promise for the entire program (Winterstein, 2000). In a study by (Ivankova, 2005) revealed that online collaboration in groups of adult learners required a great deal of energy and was very time consuming, but the efforts that the students made were intellectually stimulation and rewarding. Adults in this study stated that they felt that learning was more rewarding than the traditional classroom and gave them multiple opportunities toreflect, refine their ideas about the materials, and appreciate diverse opinions. The learners recognized the value of diverse ideas, questioning for clarification, and learned from the comprehension of others (Ivankova, 2005). As workload was harder and more involved, the reward was deeper learning. The successful student learner takes on a more active role and more responsibility for his or her own learning thus becoming more engaged in the course content (Ivankova, 2005). Additionally in this study, students who remained open to other perspectives due to geographical, cultural, professional, economical, political diversity of other students gained higher levels of understanding and validation of opinions related to the content. Personal time management and necessity for self-discipline were crucial for increased involvement in virtual class work Students can develop a sense on inferiority as some members of the class can not spend the same amount of time to the discussions as others and became more reluctant to respond. It becomes important for students to ask others their perspectives when they are not hearing from them. All students to be successful must feel like they are part of the “community”. Other students can become mentally “burned out” because of the thinking and responding that is necessary. However, students still find the work rewarding (Ivankova, 2005).
The returning student is just one of many who are partaking in distance education. As we look at a range of adult learners, there are many factors that affect the student’s perception of a course such as age, gender, college experience both in years and by generations, learning styles and cognitive readiness. Because online learning takes a certain self-discipline that students who value the course for the flexibly are ready for, there are cases where students who take the course because the traditional course is not available are not ready for what it takes to learn in this environment. Successful students typically have some characteristics that are similar to one another. First is self motivation. The adult learner who is 24-36 is more likely to succeed in this environment than an 18 to 24 year old due to experiences and means and focus. The successful online learner is willing and able to interact with teacher, other students and reflect on their own learning as well as the content given, able to participate in discussions, chats and group work, communicate with a help desk or other means for technical support, motivated internally or externally, identify relationships between their learning and real experiences where age plays a factor. (Williams and Hellman, 2004) Gender plays a role where as males tend to dominate conversations and women tend to become more observers than participants through being over-powered, yet women have a higher level of perceived learning even thought the difference is small.(Williams 2004). A student this is successful is able to succeed in tow ways, interaction and determine his or her own objectives, learning activities, and evaluation measures. This is a method of transactional learning or a function of structure and dialog (DeTure, 2004).
Hypothesis:
If a student has a consistent look and feel, a consistent outline of course content, and a consistent means for retrieving and handing in assignments from one course to another, the student’s ability to function in the classroom would greatly improve no matter what course content is being delivered.
The research study goes like this. Either one or two semester study with students in online courses. One group takes 3 courses that have been formatted in the same way and one group takes the 3 courses online that are designed in the “traditional ways”. I believe that students will have higher satisfaction in the courses that have similar methods and resources with recognizable interfaces.
Students will have higher frustration levels taking three courses that are design in different methods even thought they all meet the same standards for design and methods.
It is important to pull individual improvement plans for students in the online programs to identify where students need improvement. By identifying students for where they want to be versus where they are is a good way to look at and identify the current skill level of the student and identify where improvements should be made. Once identifying the possible qualities that a successful student must have, it would be nice to create a competencies chart where the student can measure their current skills and address the potential for improvement by identifying where they would like to be in a specific amount of time. With technology today, systems can be created that measure the student’s progress and success in online courses by tying into the institutions content management system to evaluate the progress of development and identify where the students have weaknesses. Students could be supplied content/competency specific tasks where re-usable learning objects, RLO, or multimedia learning activities, MLA’s can be developed for students to resource for personal development in skills and cognitive growth.
Methodology:
Student information needed: Age, Race, Gender, Number of online courses taken, average grade for the total of online courses taken, average grade of face to face courses taken, if they are the first member of the family to college courses, reason for taking online courses, currently hold a college degree, have worked in a profession and the number of years in that profession, do you or have you ever felt disoriented in online learning with an explanation, and are you planning to receive a degree or a certificate.
List of competencies to be evaluated in order to identify the successful students’ current competencies, the gap score to measure growth and achievement in learning transformation to determine if individual learning plans are necessary, and similarities and differences amongst students:
The responsibility of the institution to the students:
The responsibility of the faculty to the students:
The student must be responsible to themselves, other students, and the content and skill mastery.
Method
Results
NOTES