Module+6


 * Module 6 - Costs and Economics of Student Support**

This conference is of great concern to me - where we discuss the needs of the students. How do we take care of our students to ensure their success? How does their success / failure affect cost effectiveness? Should an institution plan on a certain number of students dropping out - because they expect a certain number to fail? These questions and others were addressed in this module. Main topics in this module included:

1. Introduction to the module, with an interesting article by Ormond Simpson (2008) entitled "Cost-Benefit of Student Retention Policies and Practices." What caught my attention immediately was the statement that some universities "seem perfectly happy with a failure rate of up to 40%" (p. 186). What profession/industry, besides education, would be happy with that failure rate? A great way to start the article, as it emphasizes the important of student retention in distance education. A few other points from the article:
 * Returns on investment - benefit to not only the student, but the educational institution, the government, and one's society
 * "Resale value of an education...what an employer might be prepared to pay a person with a particular qualification or what a self-employed person with that qualification might hope to earn" (p. 190)
 * "Willing to Pay price...what a prospective student is willing to pay in financial terms for that qualification" (p. 191)
 * **"Education...is a risky investment - the student investor has a 20-30% change of losing their stake" (p. 191)**

2. Next topic with regard to student support referred us back to Perraton's efficiency cube. Providing students with the support and interaction that they need to succeed, goes against the efficiency arrows - so, if interaction increases costs, what form of interaction do we use to motivate and retain our students? I made a post in the conference regarding a personal experience I had with student support:

//When one thinks of student support - what do you think about? Typically I think about the TA or some "person" I can reach about questions during my studies. It's important to remember that student support has many other functions, per the list below - not only are students provided support related to their course. Distance education students are provided various types of support, depending on the institution. Advising, counseling, administrative, technical - as also mentioned below - but also financial, library services, etc. For example, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers many resources for their distance education students:// //[|UNC Support]// //My only concern - from a personal perspective - is the quality of this support. As an example, I met with my advisor in December to make sure I was on track with my MDE program. I have been taking two courses a semester, and she said everything looked great - I would be finished in December. However, I went to enroll in my two summer classes, and there is only one class I can take this summer, because one of my remaining classes is only offered in the spring, so I should have been taking it this semester. She didn't know that. Long story short - I now can only take one class this summer, one class this fall, and have to postpone my completion of my MDE program an entire semester.// //Nancy//

3. How to drop-outs affect the costing of distance education? Should institutions just plan on a certain percentage of failure? Instead of planning on failure, wouldn't it be nice if institutions were proactive in their efforts to support students and retain students? I posted this information to the conference:

//Attached is an interesting article entitled "A Survey of a Study on the Reasons Responsible for Student Dropout from the Bachelor of Science Programme at Indira Gandhi National Open University." (posted in Webliography)// //The article addresses nine main reasons for withdraw:// //Nancy//
 * 1) //Study Centre too far from residence//
 * 2) //Insufficient academic support from study centre//
 * 3) //Programme was too time consuming to study all the courses//
 * 4) //Difficulty in attending lab sessions due to distance//
 * 5) //Absence of interaction with other students//
 * 6) //Difficulty to study science through distance//
 * 7) //Difficulty in term-end examination paper//
 * 8) //Insufficient counseling sessions - **I can relate!**//
 * 9) //Lack of responsiveness from Study Centre (p. 11)//

4. Does it make economic sense to try to retain students? Three fantastic examples were shown on this topic!

Source: []

And, Siimpson's slide on the effectiveness and cost of various retention measures: Source: []

5. Final discussion of Module 6 looked at the "wider context" - I posted the following takeaways from the readings:


 * Good quote from Simpson: "Well the best thing to do when you're puzzled by how students learn is to ask them."
 * Looking at the video excerpt, I found quite a few other videos, where students shared their secrets of success in distance learning ([]). There are numerous videos like this out there - good resources!
 * What needs to come first? A student's motivation to learn!
 * "Effective retention services take the initiative in outreach and timely interventions with those students" - Anderson.
 * Simpson states "that if you wanted to make a difference to student retention you had to be proactive...no use waiting for students to come to you...reach out to them!"
 * I agree with the concept of "Proactive Motivational Support" - Individual, Proactive, Motivational
 * Yes, we can label our teachers as being "survivalists" or "supportists" (Anderson), but we've got to start with the institution itself! (Simpson)
 * Although distance learning can provide returns on investments to full-time students, educational institutions, governments, and societies - **"investing in student retention is an excellent strategy for DOL institutions"** (Simpson, 2008, p. 202)

Nancy

Source: Simpson, O. (2008). Cost-benefit of student retention policies and practices. In W. J. Bramble, Panda, S. (Ed.), Economics of distance and online learning: Theory. practice, and research (pp. 186-204). New York, London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group