Keywords
This thesis analyzes instructional modifications that bring online Adult Basic Education students to success and retention.
Abstract
What Instructional Modification Implementations Bring Adult Education Learners to Success and Retention? Analysis of an Online Adult Basic Education Program. Adult learners enrolled in my online Adult Basic Education program showed low completion rates for the course. This study's purpose was to discover what instructional modifications would bring these learners to a successful outcome in the program. I implemented the following instructional modifications: asynchronous email communication, weekly progress reports emailed to each participant and a minimum requirement of 10 assignment completions on a weekly basis. Teacher-student interaction increased because of these implementations. I reviewed literature that discussed distance education, adult learners and teacher-student interaction to discover strategies that would improve student achievement in an online course. After reviewing the literature, I determined that there were three missing elements in my program: structured communication between the teacher and student (Palloff & Pratt, 1999), standards for online coursework completion (Comings et al., 1999) and a system to inform students of their progress in the program (Comings et al., 1999). I found that teacher-student asynchronous communication, a weekly requirement of 10 completed lessons and weekly progress reports of student accomplishments encouraged students to complete coursework on a regular basis. Students were conscientious, taking more responsibility for their learning. Students had a higher rate of coursework completions during the research study period, with performance increasing 73%.
Notes
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Graduation Date
2005
Semester
Summer
Advisor
Camp, Donna
Degree
Master of Education (M.Ed.)
College
College of Education
Department
Teaching and Learning Principles
Degree Program
Elementary Education
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0000588
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000588
Language
English
Release Date
August 2005
Length of Campus-only Access
None
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
STARS Citation
Propst, Bernadette Ann, "What Instructional Modification Implementations Bring Adult Education Learners To Success And Retention? Analysis Of An Online Adult Basic Education Program" (2005). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 490.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/490