SmarterServices has released the 2011 Student Readiness Report.
Distance learning continues to grow at an incredible rate. As more
students begin to learn online, it becomes obvious that distance
learning is a better fit for some students than others. Individuals
considering distance learning desire to know if studying online will be a
good choice for them. Schools which invest heavily in attracting new
online students want to retain the students across their degree program.
Both schools and students benefit when a student’s level of readiness
for learning online is measured.
The 2011 Student Readiness Report (SRR) uses data from 240,386 unique
students from 258 colleges and universities during the time frame of
July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Data from each of these students was
analyzed in aggregate, and the findings are now being reported in the
SRR. Among these students, 71% were female, only 30% were of
traditional age (18-22 years old), 22% had “social” as their dominant
learning style, 37% exhibited between 70%-79% of mastery in technical
knowledge, and 53% scored 100% on technical competency skills.
Statistically significant differences were found among the demographic
factors of gender, ethnicity, age, institution type, and the number of
prior online courses taken. For example, females were found to have
statistically significant higher means on the constructs of individual
attributes, typing accuracy, and life factors. Males were found to have
statistically significant higher means on the constructs of reading
rate and technical knowledge.
According to Sloan-C, over 5.6 million students were taking at least
one online course during the fall 2009 term – a 21% increase over the
number reported the previous year. This 21% growth rate for online
enrollments far exceeds the 2% growth of the overall higher education
student population. When asked about how the SRR data could help with
the growth of the online student population, Dr. Mac Adkins, President
of SmarterServices said, “The Student Readiness Report is of substantial
interest to distance learning leaders as they plan to continue to scale
and improve their programs. For example, the aggregate data included in
the report is useful to instructional designers as they craft their
courses to be intuitive for learners of various learning styles and
technical abilities, while the information about learners’ life factors
and their abilities is useful to student services personnel”.
To download a free copy of the report, go to http://www.smartermeasure.com/documents/2011_Online_Student_Readiness_Report.pdf.
The student data came from the SmarterMeasure learning readiness
indicator. SmarterMeasure is a web-based, diagnostic tool that measures
students’ strengths and opportunities for improvement in six areas
related to online learning and technology rich courses. Those include
life factors, learning styles, individual attributes (such as
procrastination, motivation, etc), technical competency & knowledge,
typing speed & accuracy, and on-screen reading rate & recall.
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