Critical Thinking
The purpose of this study is to review the document “factors influencing adult learners to drop out or persist in online learning” by Ji-Hye Park and Hee Jun Choi. This paper will identify the main points that make the
Participants
The number of participants who took part in this study was 234 who either finished an online course or dropped out of an online course from Midwestern University, and finally of the 234 participant 149 submitted their questionnaire for this study. The participants of this study were aged between 25 and 50 years old. The participant were from nigh school, college and graduate or higher.
Type of Study
This is a quantitative study. A quantitative study uses numbers to interpret event and situations, and this study uses a sample of 147 students to interpret the events under study.
Hypothesis
The hypothesis of this study is to analyse the factors that influence people to drop out of online learning and also to examine the factors that make people finish their online studies.
Procedure
The materials used for this study were questionnaires; these questionnaires were emailed to the participants. This method was used because of the distance the sample participants stayed from the each other.
Statistical Tests
The tests used were the chi tests, the standard deviation, mean and Wald statistics.
Results and Findings
Majority of the people who dropped out of online learning were female students; they represented 65.3% of the dropouts and also the female student represented the majority of the persistent learners, they represented 74.5%. A big portion of the learners were aged between 30 to 39 years. The majority of the students who dropped out of online learning were between 20 to 29 years old. When logistic regression was used there, were 90.8% of persistent learners and 87.8% of dropouts. Family affected the majority of the participants’ decision to drop out or continue leaning.
Conclusion
The study found out that the leaner individual characteristics had a big influence of the learners’ decision to continue learning or to drop out. The learners’ age, gender, and the level of education did not have a significant effect on the learners’ decision to continue learning or to drop out. Adult learners are more likely to drop out of online learning if they did not receive support from their immediate families. There was a huge difference between the learners of their level of satisfaction and perception of their learning.
Critique
The method used in analysing the rate of dropout is effective in predicting the actual result. The methods of collecting data were not appropriate; the researcher would have used face to face interviews to carry out the research this would have obtained more actual results.
