Dr
Tony Cook
Project Leader
University of Ulster
Cromore Road
Coleraine
N. Ireland
BT52 1SA
Tel:
+44 028 7032 4453
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Report on participation in a Symposium
on Student Retention in Open and Distance Learning
Madingly Hall 27-28th May 2003
Dr. A. Cook (STAR project)
Introduction
This meeting was called on an invitation only basis
for 48 participants (day one) and 24 participants (day two). It was sponsored
by "Open Learning" and the Institute of Educational Technology,
Open University, UK. Day one was devoted to further explanations of six
papers that had been written for the symposium and made available on the
web to participants for some weeks prior to the event.
Papers
The papers were:
- Conceptualising student drop out in higher education
Alan Woodley, OU
- Monitoring student progress and retention in the Open University
– definition, measurement interpretation and action.
Alison Ashby, OU
- The impact on retention of interventions to support distance
learning.
Ormond Simpson, OU
- Why students leave early in Higher Education in the UK.
Mantz Yorke Liverpool John Moores
- Understanding persistence in Adult Education.
Veronica McGivney (NIACE)
- Higher Education’s revolving door: US confronting
the problem of student dropout in colleges and Universities. Betsy
Barefoot Brevard College USA
These papers will be modified in the light of discussions and feedback
and will be published in the Journal of Open Learning.
At the end of the first day several issues were identified
for discussion on day two. These were of three types:
- The role of various entities in promoting retention – Tutor,
students, institutions.
- The nature and timing of various interventions and activities which
might promote retention of ODL students.
- The developing of a theoretical framework and a research agenda
to underpin our thinking about retention.
Accounts of these discussions will be finalised and made
available on the symposium web site in due course and I will provide a
link when they are publicly available.
Institutional Perspective
From an institutional perspective the following might
be of significance.
- Many of the issues that underlie the retention of ODL students also
underlie the retention of traditional students. The emphases might
vary but the factors remain similar.
- There is an inherent conflict between the notions of lifelong learning
and credit accumulation and notions of student retention. As we widen
participation then the definitions we choose (or are given) of retention
may act against aspirations to support life long learning. Changing,
failing, not starting, temporarily withdrawing etc., are all lumped
together under student attrition. The interest of the institution
(as opposed to that of the student) has primacy.
- There was a clear emphasis on the need to provide students with
sufficient information to make informed choices about the institution,
the mode of instruction and the discipline area. ("avoid buyers
remorse early").
- There was a consistent call for good institutional research in order
to identify those institutional factors that contribute to student
attrition, to make measurements of student retention that are educationally
sensible (i.e. those that differentiate between avoidable and unavoidable
attrition, and between leaving which is in the interests of students
and that which represents failure) and to monitor the effectiveness
of changed practices and policies.
STAR Perspective
From the perspective of the STAR Project the following
might be of significance
- The classical underpinning of retention theory provided by Tinto,
which was originally based on psychological interpretations of suicide,
may not be appropriate. The implicit assumption is that leaving university
is like academic suicide. We may need to theorise in other ways. There
is a move (on which I may be able to report later) to import theoretical
perspectives from consumer studies (repeat buying), risk management
and elsewhere to adapt to models of student retention.
- The concentration of UU ODL on postgraduate courses, particularly
professional masters courses may provide us with a source of good
practice to disseminate since these courses have low attrition rates.
There is likely to be a follow up Symposium in September 2004 at which
an examination of such courses might be appropriate.
- Pre-entry surveys are being conducted commercially in the USA and
used to advise staff on approaches to support individual students.
There may be opportunities to adapt e.g. the Noel-Levitz survey instrument
for our own purposes.
- The establishment of learning communities (say groups of 15 students)
is a growing trend that promotes retention. This may provide the foundation
for mini-projects later in the project.
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