Sarah Olden

September 8, 2016
Technology in Education

Google Scholar Assignment

Alfred p. Rovai, Mervyn J. Wighting, and Jing Liu, School Climate: Sense of Classroom and
School Communities in Online and On-Campus Higher Education Courses,
http://search.proquest.com/openview/0b36629b4f34b1280d67f0755747c89f/1?pqorigsite=gscholar, Winter 2005.
David P. Diaz and Ryan B. Cartnal, Students' Learning Styles in Two Classes: Online Distance
Learning and Equivalent On-Campus,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/87567559909595802, 2010.
Pedro A. Willging and Scott D. Johnson, Factors that Influence Students Decisions to Dropout
of OnlineCourses, http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ862360, 2009

Factors that Influence Students Decisions to Dropout of Online Course

In the article, Factors that Influence Students Decisions to Dropout of Online Courses by
Pedro A. Willging and Scott D. Johnson, they participated in a study to understand the factors
that cause so many people dropout of Online classes. Education is a constantly changing and one
way that it has changed is by allowing students to access their education online. Although many
students take an online course because it is convenient. Many students dropout of there online
classes and there are many reasons why students may dropout of an online course from
technology issues to the lacking of the personally connection in a face-to-face class. Students

who learn through online education are two times more likely to dropout from a class than
students who attend an online class.
To conduct the study, the interviewed students about why they dropped out of their online
courses. They also compiled the statistics of the students that dropped out such as, age gender,
race, ect. During this study 28 of the 38 students dropped out of their first degree program. The
further progressed a student was in their degree the less likely they were to dropout of their
classes. Also students who have trouble adapting to the online experience are more likely to
dropout, by becoming frustrated by the courses.
Overall most students enroll in an online course because of the convince and
effectiveness, but most students also drop out of online classes for similar reasons. For example,
it no longer being convenient for there life because of personal reasons or job-related reasons.
Also because it may not be as effective because of program-related reasons or technology-related
reasons. Most commonly it was because they felt the work was too hard to complete and work a
full-time job and be a graduate student. Of all of the students who dropped out of an online
program it was because the program was no longer working for them, and since few records are
kept of students dropping out of online classes it is hard to determine definitive reason why they
dropped out, but every online class it different and every students learning strategies are
different.