What do College Students Really Want? New Research on Online Learning Might Surprise You
Research into the demand for and effectiveness of online learning in higher education has been happening for nearly two decades. In the fall of 2012, for example, some 6.7 million out of 20.6 million students had enrolled in an online course. The online learning industry has continued to grow at a steady pace for several years (around 4.9% per year), but why didn’t it become the dominant approach as ed-tech futurists predicted it would?
As it turns out, it took a global crisis to get more (or even most) people teaching and learning online.
Since the start of the pandemic, Cengage has been working with Bay View Analytics to research the academic experiences of students, faculty and administrators, including their sentiments about online learning. So where are things today? More students—even those who are currently only taking in-person courses—want to take more classes online in the future. Three-quarters of students, in fact, express a preference for online, and more than half of them give online courses an “A” grade. More faculty than ever before have taught online, and many would like to continue. More students want access to other education services and support in an online environment…even support that might seem to make more sense in person, like 1:1 coaching. If online learning was the “way of the future” in 2011, the future has now truly arrived.
When colleges abruptly switched to emergency remote learning in 2020, they did so with 97% of professors never having taught online before and with students who had not signed up for online education. Many students lamented their learning experience and the loss of campus life; some even sued to get their tuition dollars back. Amidst the backlash against online learning, learning designers everywhere bristled - emergency remote learning is not true online learning with courses developed for digital delivery from the ground up, built with a team of educators over the course of many months. Fast forward two years and the majority of students – even those currently taking in-person courses – are calling for more courses to be delivered fully online in the future.
Despite how many people use and want more opportunities for online learning, it’s still a polarizing topic within higher education. There are still those who are uncomfortable with, opposed to or afraid of teaching and learning online. Some of those who are less-than-enthusiastic expressed specific sentiments that include: “I prefer in-person courses as I have more at stake in terms of personal relationships with professors and students vs. being completely online where I only interact via Zoom and do my own thing,” and “I would prefer to take my classes in person because of a lack of motivation [online].”
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We also know, though, that half of students in 2022 agreed that stress is a significant a problem for them. More than half (57%) say their institution provides support to students, but only 15% of students report that they’ve ever used those services.
Whether online or in person: it all comes back to support. If students haven’t felt supported in making the transition from in-person classes to online courses—and if they don’t even know where to go to find support or don’t have the right tools to optimize their online learning—then it stands to reason that online learning could be a stressful experience. Online students need as much, if not more, support than in-person students. From their institutions and their faculty, online students need things like:
Higher ed institutions had many crises to manage throughout 2020 and 2021, and they did the best they could in difficult circumstances, but that doesn’t change the fact that higher education delivery is fundamentally different now and the support model needs to adapt as well. Online learning isn’t going anywhere; it’s sticking as people get more and more comfortable with it and realize its benefits. The number of people who said their online courses were effective grew with the length of time they were taking the courses; from 40% in Spring of 2021 to 62% in Spring of 2022. As we all embrace the fact that online learning will likely be around for good, it’s important that we make sure we’re supporting not just the enthusiastic people in the virtual room, but also those who may need that extra nudge to feel comfortable and thrive online. And as our research, learning and practice in this area continues at Cengage, we’ll be well-placed to help institutions do just that.