Scholarships, Higher Education Enrollment, and Distance Learning: I help people improve their lives and secure their financial future through higher education by assisting them in the research of and application processing to graduate medical degrees. I am also a teacher / trainer of digital media arts, television / video production, as well as instructional design and technology. I design and create curriculum and e-learning lessons. I also produce video content on social media platforms.
The problem to be addressed
in this study is that adult learners are dropping out of online education
programs at an alarming rate.
Problem Statement
Adult learners have been
going back to college at an increasing rate as the job market has been
changing, and baby-boomers have been working longer into what would be their
traditional retirement years (Jepsen, 2012). These non-traditional students
have not been able to retire at the typical age of 65, but have had to start
new careers in other fields as their previous ones have been phasing out of
existence due to new technologies and the outsourcing of many jobs to
automation and other nations’ workforces (Cummins, 2015). But these
non-traditional students have had to continue working while going back to
school, thus pursuing continuing and higher education online (Buxton, 2012). At
the same time, many traditional students have been pursuing online higher education
as well. Consequently, the online education industry has been increasing its
student population at a growing rate (Hayward, 2015).
Traditional students, however, are more accustomed to digital communication and
the possible feelings of disconnection that go along with it(Schwier, & Seaton, 2013). Digital
communication is a large part of what makes online education work. This is one
of the reasons that it has become so popular. But online education programs
have been experiencing a concerning retention problem, especially among the
non-traditional students. In fact, in 2009 the US Department of Education
reported that the dropout rate was six to seven times higher among online
students than among students in campus based programs (Sutton, 2014). Many students complain about
feelings of isolation and separation from the faculty and their classmates. The
students (especially the non-traditional students) lose their motivation to
participate in the online activities, fall behind, and eventually drop-out or
fail their programs.
While this problem is more prevalent among adult-learners than it is among
traditional students, it is still a problem among enough of the traditional
students that it may not ever stop being a concern for educators. At the very
least, non-traditional students who are not used to these feelings of
disconnection in the learning process will still be a concern for the next two
or three decades. Most of these students utilize financial aid when paying for
their tuition, so, high drop-out numbers translate into a lot of bad debt for
the schools and the students. Students end up owing a lot of money without the
benefits of the degree which would have likely enabled them to pay the debt if
they had in fact earned the degree. They also can’t go back to school elsewhere
because they owe money to their previous schools, and can’t get official
transcripts from them or more financial aid money to attend other schools.
Consequently, they end up stuck in a “no-win situation.”
A variety of methods have been researched to resolve this online college
retention issue. They have includedinstructor immediacy-behaviors, peer-counseling,andonline learning communities,among others.Arbaugh (2001) addressed the concern of retention by exercising
immediacy behaviors in the hopes of improving student satisfaction levels. The
hope was that he could compensate for the lack of human interaction that
students experience in online programs. But Duff and Quinn (2006) decided that
retention issues in online learning could be reduced by using student peers as
counselors to potential students before they would enroll in online programs.
Diramio and Wolverton (2006) argued that the concept of learning communities is
that students in an online class could create a sense of connection among the
classmates by introducing themselves to each other, commenting and discussing
each other’s postings, working together on projects and encouraging each other
in their work through a variety of digital communication. All of these methods
have been extensive. But none of them have claimed to solve the problem
completely. In fact, most of them have claimed that their studies have room for
more research.
The preferred site for this research would be in an online
classroom in an online university program where students' participation
activity could be monitored statistically and compared with their academic
results as well as their retention. This method of research would be considered
quantitative. But the reality of this author's situation will not likely allow
for that kind of research since access to an online class interface is not
available. It is more likely that this author will have to seek out volunteers
from online classes at Nova Southeastern University (a private not-for-profit
university) to participate in surveys, interviews, and even focus groups. This
means that the method of research would have to be qualitative in nature as
opposed to quantitative.
Results from this research
will benefit not only the adult learners who are likely to struggle with online
learning, but also the universities and faculty who have been working hard to
accommodate their recently realized need as non-traditional students who have
had to go back to school so as to be able to survive in this changing new job
market. The universities will have better more effective online learning
systems set in place so as to retain higher numbers of these students, and
carry them through to graduation. Faculty will have a better understanding of
how to work with and educate this growing pool of new students. The students
themselves will benefit from the research because the improved systems will be
more capable of maintaining their interest and activity in the online
classroom. As a result they will be more likely to graduate from their
programs. Even employers will benefit from this research because they will have
a greater number of experienced new employees to choose from.
References:
Arbaugh, B. J., (2001). How
Instructor Immediacy Behaviors Affect Student Satisfaction and Learning in
Web-based Courses. Business
Communication Quarterly.
Buxton,
E. e., & De Muth, J. (2012). Adult Learners’ Perceptions of a Professional
Development Program Comparing Live Distance Learning Versus Live Local
Learning. Journal Of Continuing
Higher Education.
Cummins, P. A. (2015). The role of community
colleges in career transitions for older workers. Community College Journal
of Research and Practic.
Diramio,
D., & Wolverton, M. (2006). Integrating learning communities and distance
education: Possibility or pipedream? Innovative
Higher Education.
Duff,
A., & Quinn, D., (2006). Retention in online courses: Using a motivational
framework and online peers to enlighten potential learners about learning
online. Journal of Learning Design.
Hayward, M. S., & Williams, M. R. (2015).
Adult learner graduation rates at four U.S. community colleges by prior
learning assessment status and method. Community College Journal of Research
and Practice.
Jepsen,
C. J., & Montgomery, M. m. (2012). Back to school: An application of human
capital theory for mature workers. Economics
Of Education Review.
Schwier,
R. A., & Seaton, X. J. (2013). A comparison of participation patterns in
selected formal, non-formal, and informal online learning environments. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology.
Sutton, R. (2014).
Unlearning the past: New foundations for online student retention.Journal of Educators Online.
Eric DeRise, Ed.D.(c) is a Higher Education Expert in Tampa, FL. He’s also a Professor of video production and digital graphic arts. He’s an Ed.D. candidate at Nova Southeastern University, and earned his master’s degree in Higher Education with a focus in on-line college teaching from Purdue Global University. Eric says “I help people improve their lives and secure their financial future through higher education. I am also a teacher / trainer of digital media arts, television / video production, and journalism.” #DRDERISE