Barbour, M. K. (2013, January). Strategies to improve student completion rates in an asynchronous environment?. An invited presentation to Bridgewater Academy, Rock Rapids, IA.

1. Strategies to Improve Student
Completion Rates in an
Asynchronous Environment?
Michael K. Barbour
Assistant Professor
Wayne State University

2. Strategies
• Predicting success and remediating
weaknesses
• Using the data available to you
• Collaborating with school-based colleagues

3. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• "help predict which high school students
would be likely to succeed in online courses
and provide a basis for counseling and support
for other students interested in becoming
online learners to help them become more
successful" (Roblyer & Marshall, 2002-2003, p.
241)

4. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• reliability level of 0.92 with a sample of 135
online learning students (Roblyer &
Marshall, 2002-2003)
• reliability level of 0.92with a sample of 4100
online learning students
(Roblyer, Davis, Mills, Marshall & Pape, 2008)

5. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• 20 question instrument
• Focuses upon:
1. access to and expertise with computer
2. organization and self-regulation
3. beliefs about achievement
4. responsibility, and
5. risk-taking

6. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• 20 question instrument
• Focuses upon:
1. access to and expertise with computer
2. organization and self-regulation
3. beliefs about achievement
4. responsibility, and
5. risk-taking

7. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• Access to and expertise with computers – To take advantage of
virtual school courses, students usually find it helpful to have a
computer at home and possess better-than-average computer
skills. However, studies have shown that less affluent students are
not as likely to have computers at home. As a result, more affluent
students are showing up in greater numbers in virtual school
enrollments.
• Organization and self-regulation – Successful online students are
able to organize their time and regulate their own learning in the
relatively unstructured environments of online courses. Although
virtual teachers frequently build in checks and prompts to remind
and encourage students to keep up with courses tasks, students
who do best are already so organized and motivated that they need
fewer or no such prompts.

8. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• Beliefs about achievement – Studies indicate that students who do
best online have a strong need to achieve and have confidence in
their ability to tackle new topics and use new strategies. Online
courses represent new and unfamiliar territory, but successful
students are not intimidated by this novel setting.
• Responsibility – Successful online students seem to be those who
realize that their success lies in their own hands. They also know
that the source of failure is usually not the teacher, course
organization, or other factors. They accept responsibility for finding
ways to be successful. When they do less well than they had
hoped, they seek out information to improve their performance.
This ability relates to a quality sometimes referred to in the
educational psychology literature as having "internal locus of
control."

9. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• Risk-taking – Communication in virtual
environments is primarily written, and
assigned tasks may have varying degrees of
clarity. Students have to be willing to proceed
in the midst of ambiguity and be prepared to
do "course corrections" as needed.
(Roblyer, 2005, ¶ 6)

10. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• The problem with the ESPRI was that the
instrument was simply a prediction
instrument.
• An online learning program is able to predict
that a student will get a C or a F in a course
with reasonable (90%+) certainty, then what?

11. Educational Success Prediction
Instrument (ESPRI)
• The problem with the ESPRI was that the
instrument was simply a prediction
instrument.
• An online learning program is able to predict
that a student will get a C or a F in a course
with reasonable (90%+) certainty, then what?

12. Data Analytics

13. Data Analytics

14. Data Analytics

15. Data Analytics
Toward a Deeper Understanding of Student
Performance in Virtual High School Courses:
Using Quantitative Analyses and Data
Visualization to Inform Decision Making
by
Patrick Dickson

16. Data Analytics
• More clicks = higher grade
• Early participation = success
• Regular participation = success
• Non-traditional time participation = success

17. Data Analytics
• Using trends to prompt or motivate students
• Using historical data to prompt or motivate
students
• Understanding individual course trends

18. School-Based Personnel
• teachers at the school level provided substantial levels of support in
a wide range of areas, including supervisory and administrative
duties, technical troubleshooting, and providing content-based
assistance (Barbour & Mulcahy, 2004)
• the amount of time these school-based teachers spent supporting
the students engaged in online learning had actually increased over
the past five years and, as students with a wider range of abilities
are enrolling in online courses, the local school-based teachers have
to spend more time monitoring students’ progress and assisting the
academically weaker students (Barbour & Mulcahy, 2009)
• school-based teachers “directly working with students day by day
[were] key to the success of the [K-12 online learning] program”
(Roblyer, Freeman, Stabler, & Schneidmiller, 2007, p. 11)

19. School-Based Personnel
Provide training or coaching for the school-based
facilitators on topics including:
– first day of school
– how to talk about and support online assignments
– potential student fears
– helping to develop time management skill
– assisting with the problem of too much work
– what to do when students become disengaged
– how to ease students who are worried about their
grades
(Irvin, Hannum, Farmer, de la Varre, & Keane, 2009)

20. School-Based Personnel
• effective school-based facilitators had“a
good, working relationship, who were
consistently responsive in their interactions
with the teacher, and engaged with and
interested in their students” (de la
Varre, Keane, & Irvin, 2010, pp. 202–203)

21. School-Based Personnel
• the school-based facilitator should undertake
some of the functions that project teacher
presence
– instructional design and organization
– direct instruction
– facilitating discourse
(de la Varre, Keane, & Irvin, 2011).

22. Your
Questions
and
Comments

23. Assistant Professor
Wayne State University, USA
mkbarbour@gmail.com
http://www.michaelbarbour.com