Course Modality, Student Demographics, and Learner Success

Once on the fringes of higher education, online learning is now mainstream. Today, there are fewer entirely online or entirely face-to-face students; increasingly, college students are taking courses in a variety of instructional formats. Unfortunately, students in online classes are more likely to fail than students in traditional face-to-face classes. Here, we take close look at this disparity using aggregate demographic and academic data from thousands of students across two universities. Which factors exert the greatest influence of student success? What role does course modality play? Do students enrolled in a single online class face the same failure rates as students who take all of their classes online? Much of the literature on online education in political science focuses almost exclusively on political science courses. By looking comparatively across disciplines and holistically at a student’s entire course load, we hope to find patterns that might be obscured when the focus is only on political science. As online education continues to grow, universities, departments, and instructors need to better understand how to serve and retain students who take online classes. This large-n study aims to provide greater insight into the factors driving online and in-person student-success disparities.