Challenging Evaluation

When MOOCs exploded into the public consciousness in 2012, many supporters touted their potential to disrupt higher education. In a short time, MOOCs have evolved, and that role as radical change agents seems to have faded. However, the use of Hybrid MOOCs, in which onground courses use MOOCs for some or all of their content, does have the potential to be disruptive, albeit on a smaller scale. This article will describe one Hybrid MOOC and the ways it could be used to disrupt individual pedagogy, and perhaps affect larger change as a result.

Retention, Progression and the Taking of Online Courses

Online learning continues to grow at post-secondary institutions across the United States, but many question its efficacy, especially for students most at-risk for failure. This paper engages that issue. It examines recent research on the success of community college students who take online classes and explores similar comparisons using 656,258 student records collected through the Predictive Analytics Reporting (PAR) Framework. In particular, the research investigated retention rates for students in three delivery mode groups — students taking only onground courses, students taking only online courses, and students taking some courses onground and some courses online at five primarily onground community colleges, five primarily onground four-year universities, and four primarily online institutions. Results revealed that taking some online courses did not result in lower retention rates for students enrolled in primarily onground community colleges participating in the PAR Framework. Moreover, although retention rates were lower for such students taking only online courses than for similar students taking only onground or blending their courses, much of the difference could be explained by extraneous factors. Essentially no differences in retention between delivery mode groups were found for students enrolled in primarily onground four-year universities participating in the PAR Framework, while at participating primarily online institutions, students blending their courses had slightly better odds of being retained than students taking exclusively onground or exclusively online courses. No differences between the latter groups were found at these institutions. Patterns of retention were similar regardless of gender across institutional categories, and were mostly similar regardless of Pell grant status with the exception of fully online students at traditional community colleges. Age, however, did differentially affect delivery mode effects. Older students taking only online courses were retained at higher rates than younger students taking only online courses at both primarily onground community colleges and primarily online institutions. The results suggest that, despite media reports to the contrary, taking online courses is not necessarily harmful to students’ chances of being retained, and may provide course-taking opportunities that otherwise might not be available, especially for nontraditional students.

Persistence in University Continuing Education Online Classes

This study presents persistence and attrition data from two years of data collection. Over the eight quarters studied, the persistence rate in online courses was 79 percent. The persistence rate for similar onground courses was 84 percent. The drops for both course modalities were disaggregated by the time of the request for withdrawal: before course start, during the initial week, and during instruction. There was a significant difference between online and onground requests for withdrawals during the initial week. There was no significant difference between online and onground drop rates after the start of instruction, leading to the conclusion that differences in instruction online and onground was unlikely to be a major influencing factor in the student’s decision to drop.