Central Institute for Distance Education Research - FernUniversität in Hagen
30.06.2003
Helmut Fritsch
Contrasting Distance education drop out experience
It seems that the times of academic discussions in the field of instructional technology had reached their end when it became possible to realize all dreams having defined learning goals operationally, having developed assessment procedures, being able to prove that learning had happened.
For distance educators it was clear that learning takes place in the central nervous system of the learner and not within the medium, neither book nor TV. And distance educators knew that help in optimizing, individualizing the path to learning needs personal communication.
Yet distance education until this period still seemed to be something out of norm, something secondary, specialized for peolple with disabilities either in time or place, the distance educators worked in a sort of ivory tower: only when the peer group of academics came into closer contact with these people they found that their didactic credo made sense also for the "normal" education. Then they all came, universities trying to find their way for better instructional design, for using media in universities.
Lots of money has been put into such projects in many universities with the effect that many a project died exactly the moment when it should have been transformed into the normal system. Nowadays the project workforce, at least in Germany, turned into a second labour market attached like a planet to university structures.
The ease with which distance education institutions could cope with new media resulted from the consciousness that such new efforts did not imply a structural necessity to change the theory. Media, for a long time, belonged to the structural setup of distance education and had been under consideration for a long time. It seems that many universities were shocked with the necessity to re-think media and their roles in university teaching and had to think about the basics of didactical use of media in university teaching. Distance education institutions did not have this transition problem because of the definition of distance education:
Distance Education is an organizational form of education where
- instructional provisions,
- tutorial interactions,
- monitoring of practice as well as
- individual control of learning
Sir John Daniel of the British Open University referred to "Mega-Universities" - , the institutions enrolling regularly more than 100.000 students a year, such institutions growing in the far East more than in Europe. Without the continuing Education branch Europe hardly could present such numbers. Such "mega-universities" depend on the use of media. And there is not a hint to an inferiority complex of distance education compared with traditional education: on the contrary
- instructional "design",
- structured instances for communication
- regular assessment of individual progress
- continuous evaluation,
Success story for distance education
If it wasn't for the drop-out rates: Up to 85% drop outs from the initial enrolment figures! Whenever institutions have to report this, they will indicate similar figures in the case of competing distance education institutions. It seems to be a worldwide phenomenon.This phenomenon is based in the heterogenity of the adressees. "Students" in DE often are studying parallel to a job, have social obligations and a family and are attracted by distance education because of the possibility to participate in a continuing education program otherwise not possible. The question is now: what can we do, that drop-out does not question the whole system of distance education?
Sometimes definitions help: Not in the way the Open University introduced a so called "preliminary enrolment" and this way got rid of the dramatic drop-out of the first year. No, on the contrary, it is necessary to take a closer look at the individual biographies of the students enrolled. In 1988 we studied this at FernUniversität using the learning biographies of a compulsory regular course (mathematics for busines adminitration)(1). The figures read like this:
Non-starters : of the 1900 enrolled students 650 stopped reacting after they received the material.
Draw-backs: of the 1240 "starters" (at least one assignment turned in) 420 stopped after that
drop-outs: of the 833 "active students" (more assignments) 314 dropped out or failed
no-shows: of the 519 "admitted students" (all prerequisites fulfilled to sit the exam) 248 did not show up
failures : of the 269 students sitting the exam 90 failed and 179 passed
Of the second group (22%) we learned that many of them wanted to "keep up" with the development in their profession, tried to really work but found out that it is more work than they wanted to invest: Most of these took the decision not to continue without bad feelings.
Then we found 16.5% of drop-outs: these people sent in more than two assignments, wanted feedback, got feedback and stopped working with the material, either frustrated or not- they indicated that they meant to do the course and found that their time or effort was not enough.
Then a fairly large group of students fulfilled all prerequisites to sit the exam but did not show up: These no-shows terminated their study mostly because they felt no need to sit an exam, travel there etc., because many of them already took the same exam many years ago or have the degree to which the course curriculum belongs. It is in this group where we also have to look for students with a manifest test anxiety- more research is still needed. Anyhow, after the exam we find a pass-fail ratio of 2:1.
Roughly speaking 10% of the original cohort passed and 5% failed the final exam.
solving the problem
Success-rates of 15% of the the originally enrolled cohort are not very seldom in the difficult courses of FernUniversität: the course curriculum is not different from many normal university course curricula. But when we see in another course of the FernUniversität a success rate of 85% over several years we must look for explanations. The course now under consideration is a course in special education for teachers working already in schools for the handicapped but not yet having had a special training for their job. The curriculum is specialized but roughly the same in normal universities for on-campus-students being trained in special education.The description of this enrolled group gives the hints for all differences in comparing them with the normal students. This course is meant for training on the job. The course design does not differ much from all the other courses but the cohort is homogenuous: all are school teachers (they know how to learn) , all are in-service, regionally put together into regional study groups (many of them know each other: either they are from the same school or neighbouring schools), so there is a certain infrastructure among them, and, I think the most important feature is that their work is not aside from their study, what they learn today can be practised tomorrow, evaluated by practice and colleagues, and what they do is officially recognized by the authorities in that they receive a reduction of workload to a certain amount. All these characteristics seem to have favoured the results. So if distance education or in future the so called e-learning meets the following structures in recruiting students, drop-out seems to be a phenomenon of history:
- students should be used to systematic learning
- in a course there should be a homogenous student body
- there should be at least the offer of regionally organised seminars
- there must be regular assessment
- the curriculum should be job related as close as possible
- acceptance by the employer is favourable
(1) Helmut Fritsch & Gerhard Stroehlein: Mentor support and academic achievement
in: Open Learning, Vol.3, No.2 June 1988