Distance Education Technology: Higher Education Barriers During the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century

By Angela Ansah, Patti Neill, Michele Haralson

In the twenty-first century, despite the expanded opportunities technology affords in student-access to higher education, most institutions of higher education are hesitant to offer technology-based distance education (TBDE).  The prohibiting factors include cost, accessibility, faculty concerns, state mandates, academic administrative actions, and unit operations. Differences exist in the prohibitive factors prevalent at the start and at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Knowledge of the differences may aid higher education TBDE administrators identify or allude to barriers pertinent to their institution. Higher education administrators of institutions relatively new or limited in the use of TBDE are most likely to experience the gamut of TBDE prohibitive factors of the first decade of the 21st century. Whereas higher education administrators of institutions not new to the use of TBDE or who are at an innovative stage in the use of TBDE are most likely to experience TBDE prohibitive factors of the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century. In this paper prohibitive TBDE factors prevalent at the start of the 21st century and those prevalent a decade afterwards are discussed.

Continued at: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer142/ansah_142.html

New Study Says University Dropout Rates Tied To Preparedness, Not Laziness

From The University of Western Ontario

According to new research from The University of Western Ontario, approximately 40 percent of students who drop out of university do so because of what they learn about their own academic ability, based primarily on the grades they receive after arriving on campus.  That’s far too late a wake-up call, says Todd Stinebrickner, a Western economics professor, who serves as a faculty Fellow at the CIBC Centre for Human Capital & Productivity.  Stinebrickner co-wrote the study, “Learning About Academic Ability and the College Drop-out Decision” with his father Ralph Stinebrickner, a professor emeritus at Berea College in Kentuck.  Todd Stinebrickner explains on average, students enter university overly optimistic about their likely performance, predicting they will obtain far higher grades than what they actually obtain in the first semester.  As a result, many students learn over the course of their studies that university is not a good match for them academically, and they choose to drop out.  More importantly, Stinebrickner says these results have very little to do with incoming students working hard enough.

Continued at:http://communications.uwo.ca/com/media_newsroom/media_newsroom_stories/new_study_says_university_dropout_rates
_tied_to_preparedness,_not_laziness_20110615447540/