Are Prospective Students Ready for Online Education?
How well prepared are prospective students for the world of online education?
That is the question SmarterServices attempted to uncover in its third annual Student Readiness Report. The report is a compilation of data from students' scores on the SmartMeasure Learning Readiness Indicator - a detailed, web-based assessment that hundreds of schools throughout the United States have used to determine individual student's readiness for online learning. The information was collected between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010 and includes data from 209,025 higher education students.
"We were sitting on this huge set of data," President of SmarterServices Dr. Mac Adkins said. "We thought we should make the information available and add back to the literature that is out there on distance education."
The Results: Gender, Ethnicity and Age Differences
Of the 209,025 students whose data was included in the study, 72 percent were female and 28 percent were male. Sixty percent of these students had never taken an online course before - a figure that is five percent lower than the previous year's results.
"Females were found to have higher scores for typing accuracy and individual attributes, while the males were stronger in reading rates and technical knowledge,"Adkins said. "When sorted by ethnicity, Caucasians were strongest in technical knowledge, typing speed and reading recall while Asian and Pacific Islanders scored highest for typing accuracy. Individual attributes [such as time management and motivation] were highest among the American Indian respondents."
In addition to gender and ethnicity, data was looked at according to age, institution type and the number of online courses the respondents had previously taken. The report found significant differences when comparing data between the youngest and oldest students, with the younger respondents scoring higher in technical competency and the older students scoring higher for all of the individual attributes. According to the report,"In this analysis it is clear that one's individual attributes in relation to online learning do improve with age. The highest means for all factors except help seeking were demonstrated by students 48 years or older."
In addition to the improvement of individual attribute scores with age, the report found a statistically significant increase in scores as students gained more experience in the online classroom. This is particularly true for technical knowledge, which increased significantly as the number of prior courses increased.
Using Readiness Data to Help Students Succeed
The SmartMeasure assessment measures students' technical skills, reading rate, reading recall, learning styles, life factors and individual attributes such as motivation, procrastination, time management and willingness to ask for help. Once the assessment is complete, SmarterMeasure immediately generates a detailed report to help both students and educators understand each student's strengths, as well as areas where improvement is needed.
According to Adkins, school counselors are advised to use this data to provide support to students as they embark on their online courses - particularly if they are new to distance learning. "There are two main ways the test is given to students," Adkins said. "First, schools will embed the test into an orientation program. Secondly, schools will embed the test into the admissions process - not to prevent students from enrolling, but to retain students who do sign up for classes."
Once the results have been obtained, school counselors can discuss the results with students or prospective students to help prepare them for online learning. "It helps students go into the course with their eyes wide open and it helps the schools identify those who are in need of additional support," Adkins said.
Prospective students also have the option of taking the SmarterMeasure assessment themselves through SmarterServices for a one-time fee, Adkins said.
Adjusting Expectations
"The flexibility of taking courses online is very appealing because it is convenient. However, sometimes students translate convenience to mean easy...then they find out that you actually have to read [assignments] and get tested on what you've learned. Studying online is not easy."
Contributing to the glorification of online education are the marketing efforts of some educational institutions that use unrealistic marketing strategies to entice students to register for courses, Adkins said. "There are television advertisements for online programs that show smiling mothers studying on their laptops as they bounce a two year old on their knee. Obviously, that's not an ideal learning situation."
"One positive factor the report revealed, was that student readiness increased with the number of online courses a student takes,"Adkins said. "So, while they may start off overwhelmed, if you help these students succeed, life is going to be much easier for them in the long run."
"My message to students would be to stick with it - it will get easier," he said.
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