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Factors Affecting Online Course Completion Rate Increased use of the Internet in post-secondary education has raised the issue the feasibility of using the Internet as a supplement to or replacement for face-to-face, classroom courses. This use of the Internet has sparked discussion on a variety of educational, technological, and financial issues. However, there are few discussions – and fewer studies – on the effectiveness of online education (Van Dusen 1997). There are many ways to measure whether a learner is successful in the online classroom. One of the most basic is completion rate of courses; it is easily measurable, and the focus of this study. Further studies should address other methods of assessing outcomes – and ultimately, success – in this environment. There are indications that completion rate of online courses is lower than the rate for face-to-face classroom courses (Hiltz 1997). Why is this? It is important to understand contributing factors for completion of online learning, and what course designers and instructors can do to improve it. This is not a new problem. Correspondence courses have dealt with the same issue for over 150 years, but have found few satisfactory solutions.A desire to answer the above question was the motivation to perform this case study analysis of an online, paying workshop that teaches participants how to create their own online courses. Course materials, participant data, and evaluation survey data were made available to the author. The purpose of this case study is to identify and assess factors that affect the completion rate of an online workshop.
A definition of online learning Everyone seems to have a different opinion of what "online education" is. This study builds on Harasim's (1989) definition of an online course, in which the primary in which the primary component is computer conferencing that supports interactions between students and with the instructor. Also, the medium is asynchronous, so courses are not bound by set meeting times, and can be accessed anywhere there is a connection to a computer network. This study further defines an online course to be one that is not just a supplement to a face-to-face course. An online course uses communications that occur via the Internet (primarily conferencing systems used on the World Wide Web). Course materials may still be in print form, or on the Internet.
Using the Organizational Framework to review literature on completion rate There is a considerable range of literature on distance and adult education, but a scarce amount on online education. This is understandable, since the field is quite new. One of the earliest discussions of online education occurred in 1989, when Harasim argued that online education is a separate domain from distance and face-to-face education, while using characteristics of both. This review of the literature includes articles that deal with relevant completion rate issues for distance and adult education. The literature will be framed around an adaptation of the Organizational Framework for Exploring Questions about Learning, Understanding, and Remembering, (Figure 1, Bransford 1979). The points that I will focus on are characteristics of the learner and instructional (learning) activities, where the task is to match the design of the online course to the learner's needs and abilities (Figure 2). Two other points of the framework – nature of the materials to be learned and criterial tasks (testing tasks used to evaluate the degree of learning) – are equally important but beyond the scope of this study.
Figure 1. Organizational Framework: Learning, Understanding, and Remembering
Figure 2. Modified Organizational Framework
Modified Framework: Learner Characteristics The needs and abilities of the learner include (1) motivation for taking the course, (2) having access to and sufficient knowledge of technology needed to participate, (3) the veteran vs. novice student, (4) proper match of content prerequisites, and (5) support from others. Motivation Motivation to take a course likely plays a role in the completion rate. Schrum (1995) argues that the most successful students enroll for their own reasons, and Ahern (1993) agrees that intrinsic motivation is critical to success. Another factor that relates to student motivation is the incentive: whether grades, certifications, or degrees are offered. This topic is discussed in the instructional activities section of the modified Organizational Framework. Technology access and knowledge Having access to technology throughout the course keeps students from being easily discouraged. For example, a study conducted by Williams (1998) found that students who dialed in long distance to access a course did not want to stay online for long periods of time, reading materials. Mason also found this to be true (1989). Others (who?) suggest that many learners print out materials to read at a later date. Learners must have sufficient knowledge of the technology used for the course before taking the course (Schrum 1995, Williams 1998). It can be very difficult to learn how to use the course technologies while mastering content. Eastmond (1995a) notes that students learn just enough of the technology to do basic tasks, as it is a low priority. Until the medium can become transparent to the student, technology difficulties must be considered as a factor in the completion rate.At present, this is a factor usually beyond the students' control, although technology requirements can be simplified or learners can be selected partly on the basis of their access to and familiarity with the technology required for the course. Content prerequisites/Novice Students There may be an optimal level of content familiarity for course completion: too low and the learner is overwhelmed (Guri 1990); too much and the learner may become bored (Eastmond, 1995a). Technical novices may need quite a lot of assistance learning how to use the communication tools. Schrum (1995) suggests that students familiarize themselves with the technology before taking an online course. Support from others could also be a factor. Schrum (1995) states that family and co-workers need to be supportive of the learner. Harasim et. al (1995) found specific requirements: in a study of an online professional development workshop in the mid 1980s, students showed little activity in the computer conference. This was partly due to the fact that students did not have enough time, since they were not given a reduced work load by supervisors. Modified Framework: Instructional Activities The following factors describe the instructional activities: 1) timing issues, (2) amount of instructor intervention, (3) fostering a community of practice, (4) organization of course materials and discussions, (5) incentives needed to complete, (6) use of authentic problems, and (7) use of synchronous components. Timing Issues Concerning the above factors, issues with timing seem to give students the most trouble. Harasim points out the need for a time frame for activities (1989), but implementation of the details is another matter. There are three major areas within: (1) length of course, (2) use of deadlines, (3) start date of course, and (4) amount of learner participation. With respect to completion, does the length of a course really matter? While Schrum (1995) states that students should move through a course as rapidly as possible before the tendency to procrastinate sets in, Eastmond (1995) argues that course discussion areas should be open longer to let those who might fall behind or need more time catch up with the material and discussion. Use of deadlines with consequences can help learners keep from procrastinating, which is easy to do in this medium. A study by Hiltz (1994) showed that nearly half of online learners would stop participating in class when they became "too busy", i.e. other commitments from work or family. Harasim (1989) showed that most participation in the class conferencing system was the day before an assignment was due. Procrastination happens more often in the online environment, especially since the students taking these courses do not fit the mold of the traditional independent study, distance education learner (Hiltz 1997, Schrum 1995). Using deadlines is one way to keep everyone on time. An example of using deadlines comes from the same study by Hiltz (1994), where adding weekly quizzes on a different day than the assignment deadline forced students to log onto the course more often. Adding a consequence if the student does not finish, such as a lowered grade, does affect student performance. This is discussed in the "Incentives to complete" section. The final timing issues deal with when to start and how often to participate. Wegerif's students (1998) found that the medium is "not as asynchronous as it seems," and that starting late or falling behind resulted in a large backlog of unread messages in a conferencing system. It then becomes time consuming to attempt to catch up with the rest of the class. Eastmond (1995a) and Hiltz (1994) found that the most enthusiastic students (who also tended to finish a course) found themselves logging on to the conferencing system often – sometimes every day, if not more – in order to keep up. Instructor Intervention How often the instructor participates in the course can encourage or stifle student participation, and ultimately the completion rate. An instructor should encourage active participation by students (Harasim 1995, Schrum in press), and Jiang (1998) has shown students will participate more if the instructor does. However, the instructor should take care to not dominate the conversation, as this will decrease opportunities for student interaction (Harasim et al. 1995, McInerney 1995). Finally, students need positive encouragement and reminders from instructors (Davie 1989, Hiltz 1994). Hiltz (1997) likens online instructors to "cybernetic cowboys", constantly having to remind students of upcoming assignments and deadlines. Community of practice Developing an online community of practice (Lave 1991) has been overlooked, according to Wegerif (1998), but is becoming a more important issue. Williams' (1998) study showed that students felt the need to "connect" with others while taking a course, and Hiltz (1994) found that online students were motivated by knowing that their peers would read their comments. A sense of community can be supported by having "get-to-know-you" or icebreaker assignments in the beginning of the course (Bohlin 1993, Harasim 1995, Hiltz 1997, Wegerif 1998), collaborating on group projects (Berge 1997, Jonassen 1995), appropriate encouragement by the instructor (Harasim 1989), creating opportunities for short, informal interactions in a conferencing system (Wegerif 1998, Wolcott 1996), and other ways to support a sense of community. However, there is as yet only anecdotal evidence that a sense of community helps learners complete a course. Scaffolding Scaffolding of materials is also mentioned in literature, but there is no research on its effect. Some argue (Bohlin 1993, Eastmond 1995) that structure is needed throughout the course, while Knowles (1974) states that adults need to define their own learning. A solution that both Wegerif (1998) and Bohlin (1993) suggest is to have structured exercises at the beginning, with a gradual tapering to less structure later on in the course. Organization of materials and interactions Organization of course materials and online interactions appears important to keep students from feeling frustrated. Ahern (1994) states that the design of the user interface is an important factor for success, and Bohlin (1993) agrees that adults want clear learning objectives and assignments. Harasim (1989) states that better organization of conferencing systems are needed. Fortunately, current web conferencing systems have features such as threaded discussions, search capabilities, and labels (i.e. agree, disagree, reflection, reference) to classify messages. This has eased the difficulty in organizing online discussions. Incentives Adult students also need incentives to complete. Assigning a portion of the course grade for online participation can be one way of doing this (Harasim et al. 1995, Hiltz 1995). Additionally, Jiang (1998) found a correlation between participation in online discussions and making the discussions part of the course grade. Adult learning theory has long postulated that students need authentic "real-world" problems (Bohlin 1993, Berge 1997, Jonassen 1995, Knowles 1978, Schrum in press). In the online professional development study (Harasim et al. 1995) mentioned in the "Support for others" section, not having authentic problems that directly related to job advancement was another detriment to course participation. Synchronous components Although the stated definition of an online course is limited to those that are asynchronous, some argue that some synchronous components are needed to keep the interest level high. Mason showed in one study that incorporating a synchronous "event" at the end of a course helped students bring closure to the course (1997). Also, she reports that an event of some kind was needed to boost the completion of the course. Even with strong instructor and facilitator support, there tended to be a significant decrease in participation towards the end of the course. Williams' (1998) study also shows that students wanted more opportunities for face-to-face interaction throughout. Summary of Factors Using an adaptation of the Organizational Framework for Learning, Remembering, and Understanding (Figure 1), the above factors can be grouped into two categories: needs and abilities of the learner and instructional activities. I hypothesize that learners who successfully complete an online course must have a proper match of these abilities and needs to the design of the course. Figure 2 summarizes the factors discussed above. Research Question To bring focus to the relative importance of these factors, this study investigates one instance of a well-known online workshop. The intent is to use the case study approach to investigate one program in detail. While there are limits to what can be generalized from the study, it may provide insights for further research and practice. As it would be impossible to investigate all of the discussed factors in detail, this study attempts to identify the most important factors influencing the completion rate. The indicator of effectiveness and learner success will be completion rate, defined as meeting all assignment requirements. Back to Table of Contents |
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