Hello again everyone!

For the second part of session 4 we had to read through some articles on non-traditional (online education) student retention. 
While I was reading through the articles I got a little bit confused because during the first few sessions we learned how great DE is especially for people who are working and have families because you can study at your own pace and in your own time! We also read about the successes of open universities with different online courses. However in the articles we had to read for this session I read about the problems institutions that offer online courses are facing with low student retention. Low student retention results in a significant loss of revenue for the institution and has the potential to impact its financial health and survival. A marginal increase in student retention however can result in a significant gain in revenue to the institution. Therefor a lot of research has been done by different people on the subject of student retention and especially retention of non-traditional students. 

Distance learning retention is a difficult problem because it is multi-variant. There is no single cause that can be addressed by a single solution. According to research the solution must be sought in a combination of interventions. 

Michael Herbert, Chair of the Criminal Justice Department at Bemidji State University, holds a Ph.D. in teaching and learning from the University of North Dakota and developed the first online courses in his department. He gave eight insights he gained during the course of his study.

1. Students need to feel integrated into the program and the institution

2. Pedagogy and instructor training. Teaching online has its own very distinct set of instructor skills that are essential for an online course to be successful.

3. Family obligations affect retention

4. Support affects retention

5. Interaction between students and the institution affects retention

6. Students satisfaction with the institutional environment affects retention

7. Student variables affect retention

8. Best practices affect retention 

Research has shown that personal contact is one of the keys to retention in distance education. 
In all the articles it comes down to the same thing to incorporate personal contact within the course as much as possible! So that the student feels supported and not like he or she is on an island by themselves. 

To accomplish this a lot of research, money and resources have gone into programs such as Truluck’s online mentoring practice and the design of Web-based Student Relationship Management (SRM) applications such as Service Center.

My dilemma is why would you go to so much trouble of depersonalizing traditional education and designing online courses for nontraditional students if you have to go through much more trouble of personalizing it again? Is it ultimately worth the investment? Especially for a small population like Suriname with an even smaller higher education population? 

I look forward to your response!
Kind regards Debbie