from Inquiry, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1997, 31-36
© Copyright 1997 Virginia Community College System
Brief Abstract
Results of surveys of students who did not successfully complete telecourses and of faculty and administrators involved in telecourse planning and delivery at Germanna Community College led to improvements in students’ completion rates.
Distance Learning is the “buzz word” in higher education today. It is touted as the way to reach individuals who normally do not take classes in American institutions of higher education. Colleges and universities throughout the United States are turning to technology to assist in the delivery of distance learning courses as they develop courses for television broadcast, for the Internet, and for stand-alone software used on home computers. Institutions measure the success of Distance Learning Activities (DLA) by the number of new FTEs generated and by the number of students who receive passing grades for completing the course. Is this the only way to measure the effectiveness of DLA? Are colleges and universities collecting data to justify their own existence, or are they truly assessing the effectiveness of the delivery method and courses in terms of student learning?
There are many definitions of DLA, and as educators continue to practice in the area, their definitions evolve. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools uses a broad definition of DLA which describes them as “that educational process that occurs when instruction is delivered to students physically remote from the main campus, the location or campus of program origin, or the primary resources that support instruction” (Policies, Procedures and Guidelines of the Commission on Colleges 45). Germanna Community College has offered forms of DLA to students in its service region for many years in the form of individual and group independent studies and courses offered at remote sites. During the spring semester of 1996, 2015 students participated in 50 sections of 33 different courses. The number of student credit hours represents 10 percent of the college's annualized FTEs.
It was only recently, in the fall of 1994, that Germanna initiated its delivery of DLA via telecourse format. The program began with SPA 163, Spanish for Health Professionals, and SPA 103, Basic Spoken Spanish (adapted especially for Criminal Justice professionals). Since then, fourteen telecourses have been offered during two full academic years; and many students have been successful in completing course requirements for graduation, in improving professional job skills, and in expanding their horizons by taking additional course work for personal satisfaction. Two hundred sixty-eight students have enrolled in telecourses at Germanna, and 64 percent of them have successfully completed the courses with passing grades.
Through the auspices of a Virginia Community College System professional development grant, the faculty who teach telecourses at Germanna recently completed a study to investigate not the 64 percent of students who successfully completed telecourses, but the 36 percent who did not. Faculty felt that once students drop out, there was no additional contact. None of the faculty knew why the students elected to withdraw from their courses, not complete them, or receive failing grades. The faculty who taught distance learning courses developed a separate assessment process to reach out to students who did not successfully complete a telecourse, and their completion and retention survey revealed some surprising results.
All students who enrolled in at least one of the telecourses during the four academic semesters in which they were offered at Germanna were placed in one of five groups: those who successfully completed the telecourse, those who dropped the course during the first two weeks and received a full refund, those who withdrew from the course without academic penalty, those who requested an incomplete at the end of the academic semester (they may or may not have successfully completed the course after the time extension), and those who failed the course. The research plan assumed that students who returned the traditional course evaluation at the end of the semester provided the data from the group of students who successfully completed a course. Therefore, that group was eliminated from the completion and retention study. (Their data, however, was included in the results of the overall telecourse assessment.) The remaining four groups became the focus of the investigation which was conducted during the 1996 spring semester.
The research plan adopted two separate strategies for communicating with the focus groups — contact by telephone and contact by mail. Students who dropped a course within the first two weeks and those who withdrew from a course without academic penalty were contacted by telephone. The investigating team felt that those students would not feel inhibited about discussing their experiences. The telephone interview took approximately five minutes to complete. The focus group was asked to respond to the following questions:
Why did you initially enroll in the telecourse?
Did you attend the orientation for the course?
Were you satisfied with the way you were able to view the
telecourse?
Why did you decide to drop the telecourse?
Is there anything the college could have done to have helped you
complete the course?
Would you enroll in another telecourse?
Thirty-two percent of students who either dropped the course within the first two weeks or withdrew from it without academic penalty agreed to respond to the telephone survey conducted by an administrative secretary whom the respondents viewed as having no direct relationship to the comments they might give.
Those students who either requested incompletes at the end of the regular semester or who failed a course were contacted by mail. The investigating team felt that these students might prefer discussing their experiences privately and anonymously. They were asked to respond to similar questions:
Why did you initially enroll in the telecourse?
Did you attend the orientation for the course?
Were you able to view the videotapes and complete the required
assignments?
Did the additional time that you were given to complete the
course help you? Why or why not?
Is there anything the college could have done to have helped you?
Would you enroll in another telecourse?
Sixteen percent of students who requested incompletes or failed the course responded to the mail survey, and those who did return the survey usually wrote a great deal in response to each of the questions.
From the telephone and mail surveys, the college learned that students who did enroll in a telecourse had high expectations that may not have been realistic. Students were not aware that telecourses required more time and effort to successfully complete the course because students essentially instruct themselves. While faculty and administration informed students that a telecourse is an independent study delivered via the medium of television, students learned that it was not just “watching a television program.” Some students admitted that they were “searching for the easy way out” academically; telecourses were definitely not for them. Other students sought more flexibility in their academic scheduling so that they could balance professional and personal responsibilities with their educational endeavors. Telecourses were a solution to problems for this latter category of students as long as they had the self-determination to finish the task they began.
Telecourse delivery at Germanna has improved over the past two academic years; but because of the combined rural/urban nature of the college’s service region, that delivery has not always been smooth. During the first year (1994-1995), a minority of students were able to view the telecourses on local cable channels, and the majority of students went to regional libraries and video stores to either view or borrow the videos. During the second year (1995-1996), more students were able to view the telecourses on local cable channels, but the western section of the service region still had no local cable channel to use for public programming. Students were still required to borrow the telecourse videos from a local video rental store. One of the reasons why more students were able to view the telecourses on the local cable channels during the second year was because of technical changes in how the college worked with the cable companies. The video tapes for the telecourses were duplicated in a different technical format for broadcasting, and it became easier for the local companies to preprogram the broadcast on the types of equipment they use. The cable companies became more amenable to working with the college and its academic schedule as the college became more responsive to the technical requirements of the cable companies. The willing cooperation between the private companies and the college continues to aid in improving the delivery of telecourse offerings.
During the completion and retention study, students did indicate that they dropped or failed the course because they were not able to view the videos. The assessment confirmed that placing copies of the videos at select remote sites where cable access is not available is important to those students who otherwise would not be able to participate. Faculty and administrators also learned that videos placed at remote sights also helped students with cable access who missed viewing or taping a broadcast during the course of study. While the regional libraries did not allow the videos to be removed from the library, they did, however, provide a TV/VCR for students to view the videos at the facility. The video store in the western sector of Germanna's service region allows a 48-hour loan without cost or penalty to students enrolled in a telecourse, and charges students a 50-cents-per-day fee for late return beyond the initial two-day loan period. Even with the penalty and repeated calls to students who chronically failed to return materials in a timely fashion, there were situations where one inconsiderate student caused the rest to fall behind, become frustrated, and quit or fail the course.
Another issue that students raised in the survey was the length of the academic semester. During the first academic year, telecourses were broadcast during the regular sixteen-week semester. Students indicated that the 4-month time period was too short for them to reasonably complete a course of study. The next year, the telecourse semester was lengthened by four weeks, and the number of incompletes requested by students dropped dramatically — from 36 percent during the fall 1994 semester to four percent in fall of 1995. Lengthening the semester raised the completion rate, and fewer students felt forced to request incompletes in order to finish the required work.
In an effort to keep students progressing steadily through their academic work and finish a course on time, one faculty member asked students to come to campus once a week to take a quiz on the material studied the previous week. While the faculty member had the best of intentions, the completion and retention survey revealed that the concept did more harm than good. Students responded that telecourses should be delivered to the home and completed in the home; students should not be required to be present on campus on a weekly basis. The respondents indicated that they enrolled in telecourses so that they would not have to make the periodic trip to campus. One of the primary attractions of the telecourse was its flexible scheduling. Students requested that flexibility and convenience be foremost in the minds of faculty and administration who participate in telecourse planning and delivery.
By far the most astounding information the survey gathered from students was the fact that they were unable to purchase textbook materials in the college book store. After some investigation, college personnel determined that many individuals other than those enrolled in telecourses came to the book store to purchase copies of the textbook materials. Apparently, there were many people in the service region who followed the telecourse broadcasts at home without enrolling in them for credit. The book store had ordered enough copies of all text materials for the number of students officially enrolled in the telecourses, but the number of individuals who purchased the materials far exceeded the number of enrolled students. Therefore, a policy was established in cooperation with the college's book store manager that individuals who purchase telecourse materials must show proof that they have officially enrolled in the course. This policy now insures that all enrolled students have course materials available to them in a timely fashion.
Faculty and administrators involved in telecourse planning and delivery were also surveyed during the spring semester of 1996 to see if there were administrative issues affecting student outcomes that needed to be addressed. One of the most important issues that all faculty members raised was the concern that instructors might “water down” telecourse content in order to increase student success. The faculty concluded that there will always be students who enroll in telecourses and, for reasons beyond their control, will not complete the course successfully. Administrators and faculty can make every effort to help students, but students also need to help themselves. The best service that a college can provide telecourse students is to be straightforward in discussing academic issues with them at the required orientation session. Faculty and administrators alike felt that it is better to paint a very realistic picture of the amount of work needed to complete a telecourse and have students decide to drop the course than to have them experience frustration and failure because their expectations were not accurate. Faculty do not encourage students to take incompletes and finish the work at a later time because few students change their circumstances with the additional time given.
Telecourse faculty also developed a profile of a telecourse instructor. Collectively they determined the following:
Telecourse instructors are people-oriented individuals who communicate well both verbally and in writing. They are patient and willing to address the individual rather than the group, which causes duplication of effort. Telecourse instructors are energetic, meticulous, readily adaptable, and sympathetic. They are capable of balancing the increased work load associated with teaching a telecourse, and they can tolerate a lack of immediate feedback to measure the effectiveness of their instructional procedures.
The college's completion and retention survey was successful for a number of reasons. First, the college identified issues it could address that would lead to greater student learning and success. Second, the faculty and administrators who participated in this research learned from first-hand experience that assessment must reach every segment of the academic community — not just the students who come to class all the time, or in the case of the telecourse, the ones who keep up with their work and finish the course. Assessment must also look at the group of students who are not successful. Colleges must seek out the reasons behind the withdrawal or failure of the other segment of the telecourse student population. Third, the evaluation process revealed that telecourses are a needed, appreciated, and viable method of delivering academic activities to special segments of the service region. Telecourses offered as part of a distance learning program can be very effective in reaching a segment of the community college constituency who might not otherwise be able to enroll in traditional courses; however, they must be continuously assessed to determine their quality. Completion and retention studies reveal issues that colleges can change in order to improve future distance learning activities. These studies should be completed on an annual basis to determine the issues that impact student learning and success. By assessing and evaluating responses from all the students, both the majority who are successful and the minority who may never be heard from again, faculty and administrators involved in distance learning activities can view the whole picture of the effectiveness of the distance learning program.
Suzanne S. Hintz is Associate Professor of Spanish and Coordinator for Foreign Languages at Germanna Community College. She earned her doctorate in Latin American literature at The Catholic University of America. She has published numerous articles on Peninsular and Latin American literature both in the U.S. and abroad. She is the author of Rosario Ferre: A Search for Identity, the editor of Studies in Honor of Josep M. Sola-Sole: Linguistic and Literary Relations Between Catalan and Castilian, and the translator of The War of the Christs and Emilia's Case.