How Technology Can Improve Online Learning - The Chronicle of Higher Education
As president of a nonprofit, online university I am often asked about the quality of online learning. The answer is that the quality of education is largely independent of the mode of delivery. Other variables are far more important. There is high-quality online learning, and there is high-quality classroom learning, just as there is low-quality learning in both settings.
Several recent studies support this observation: A report from the American Enterprise Institute called “Diplomas and Dropouts” documented the wide disparity in graduation rates across 1,300 traditional colleges and universities, even between those with similar admissions criteria and students. The Washington Monthly’s 2010 College Guide listed 50 “dropout factories”—all bricks-and-mortar institutions with graduation rates from 5 percent to 20 percent. A 2010 meta-analysis and review of online-learning studies, published by the U.S. Department of Education, concluded that online learning was as good as or slightly more effective than traditional face-to-face instruction.
Since most online education is simply classroom instruction delivered through the Internet, it isn’t surprising that the learning outcomes are roughly the same. Most colleges, including online institutions, have yet to find ways to use technology to really transform education. Most online courses are still taught in a virtual “classroom” by a professor or instructor, have a defined schedule for covering the curriculum, and are conducted over a set number of weeks. Rather than debating whether classroom education is better than online education, we should be looking for ways to use technology to improve the overall quality of higher education.
How should we measure quality? While retention and graduation rates are important metrics, placing too much emphasis on these factors may well backfire. Not long ago, in a meeting with their governor, the public-college presidents of one state told the governor that if he wanted higher graduation rates, they would simply raise admissions standards. Other colleges that face pressure to raise graduation rates may leave admissions standards in place but make the curriculum less rigorous. If the focus is on default rates for federal aid, colleges will simply not admit those who are less likely to repay loans (in many cases the very people financial aid was designed to help). Quality does not lend itself to government regulation because there is no simple metric.
Recent criticism of graduation rates in some online-learning programs fails to take into account the student population of these online institutions. Comparing graduation rates in online learning programs that serve primarily older, working adults to the rates at a college that enrolls 18- to 22-year-olds is not valid. In late September, Complete College America, a nonprofit group pushing for higher graduation rates, put out a comprehensive report showing that only 27 percent of full-time students age 25 or older at entry graduated with a bachelor’s degree in six years. For older part-time students the number dropped to 10.6 percent (substantially lower percentages than for younger students, minority students, or low-income students). In other words, our traditional institutions typically aren’t serving this population of older students any better than fully online institutions.