Student Success In Top 20 Courses Of An Online Institution: Demographic Differences In A Multi-Semester Cross-Curricular Study

Vol. 7 No. 2

Year: 2010

 Issue: July-September

Title	: Student Success In Top 20 Courses Of An Online Institution: Demographic Differences In A Multi-Semester Cross-Curricular Study
Author Name	: Angela Gibson, Lori Kupczynski, Phil Ice
Synopsis	:
Student success is vitally important.  Without academic achievement student self-efficacy is lost, persistence is blocked, and matriculation is unachievable.  Exponential growth at online institutions necessitates the inquiry into factors that play a role in student success.  In this study, approximately 15,000 cases from the Top 20 enrolled courses of undergraduate students at a large national fully online university were examined to determine if course Grade Point Average was related with student characteristics, e.g., student gender, ethnicity, age, and military status.  Multiple semester sessions were analyzed across multiple curricular areas.  Results and recommendations are discussed.