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Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas

By Di Xu & Shanna Smith Jaggars
Using a dataset containing nearly 500,000 courses taken by over 40,000 community and technical college students in Washington State, this study examines how well students adapt to the online environment in terms of their ability to persist and earn strong grades in online courses relative to their ability to do so in face-to-face courses. While all types of students in the study suffered decrements in performance in online courses, some struggled more than others to adapt: males, younger students, Black students, and students with lower grade point averages. In particular, students struggled in subject areas such as English and social science, which was due in part to negative peer effects in these online courses. A version of this paper appears in the Journal of Higher Education, vol. 85, no. 5.
Download CCRC Working Paper No. 54
February 2013
View article (subscription may be required)
September 2014
  • Online Courses in Community Colleges

Related Publications

December 2013

Examining the Effectiveness of Online Learning Within a Community College System: An Instrumental Variable Approach

October 2013

Role Ambiguity in Online Courses: An Analysis of Student and Instructor Expectations

April 2013

What We Know About Online Course Outcomes

Additional Resources

For more policy briefs and fact sheets, visit CCRC’s Policy Resources page.

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