What Instructional Modification Implementations Bring Adult Education Learners To Success And Retention? Analysis Of An Online Adult Basic Education Program

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%.

Author dc:creator

• Propst, Bernadette Ann

Contributors dc:contributor

• Camp, Donna

• This thesis analyzes instructional modifications that bring online Adult Basic Education students to success and retention.
• Education
• Elementary Education and Teaching

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

CFE0000588

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-1489