Students in Carleton’s online courses are racking up higher rates of failing grades and withdrawals than their counterparts in traditional, in-person courses, according to data presented Feb. 28 to the Senate, Carleton’s highest academic body.
The data presented by Peter Ricketts, Carleton’s provost and vice-president (academic), measured the rate of “D” and “F” grades and course withdrawals—called the DFW rate.
He reported an overall DFW rate of 32.75 per cent for courses offered by Carleton University Online (CUOL) versus 24.59 per cent for non-online courses at the undergraduate level.
The office of assistant vice-president (institutional research and planning) Bruce Winer compiled the statistics.
Winer said he thinks the numbers should not come as a shock, but the jury is out on why the statistics are like this.
“This is a long-standing phenomenon,” he said.
“It’s not simple to know whether this is . . . a function of the courses or a function of the students,” Winer said. “It may be parts of both.”
His office also reported undergraduate withdrawal from CUOL courses at 14.19 per cent, compared to the non-CUOL withdrawal rate of 10.49 per cent.
Second-year student Cory Steele said motivation can be an issue with online courses. Steele is currently enrolled in his third online course at Carleton.
“It’s basically cramming before every exam, because there’s no real need to actually keep up with the course throughout the actual semester,” he said.
Steele said his experience has been the same in all his online courses, none of which had assignments throughout the semester.
Enrolment in CUOL courses has grown from 10,000 in 2009-10 to more than 16,000 in winter 2013, according to Patrick Lyons, director of teaching and learning for CUOL.
Lyons said the problem isn’t that courses are online. Instead, he said the cause of high DFW rates is instructor commitment and the design of courses—online or otherwise.
“If you have good design and you have instructors that care and are passionate about teaching and learning, you will have a great learning experience,” Lyons said. “Those are the most important things in my mind, and the research supports that.”
Lyons said online courses can be outstanding and flexible for students, but they aren’t for everybody.
“It allows students to be far more in control of the learning,” he said. “I think we need to look at [the data] strategically and say, ‘are there things we could do better?’”
Winer shared that perspective.
Statistics aren’t the whole story and he said they can’t be used to judge whether or not online courses are good or bad.
“I think it requires a holistic analysis,” he said.
Ricketts said Carleton’s senate is not formally looking into the issue at this time.
