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May 07, 2009, 10:02 AM ET
U. of Phoenix Study Probes Whether National Student Survey Works for Online Colleges
Making a class presentation. Joining a fraternity. Rising from freshman to senior.
They all come with the traditional college experience, and you’ll find all of them referenced in the National Survey of Student Engagement.
But what about online students?
A new study from the University of Phoenix probes how the growing ranks of e-learners understand – or don’t understand – the widely used annual survey. Its question: Can the report, known as “Nessie,” capture the experience of students who don’t set foot in a classroom?
Yes and no, depending on the learning model, says Phoenix.
Some distance educators cheered last year’s Nessie, the first to evaluate the experience of online students. And the new Phoenix study found much of it fit the giant for-profit university’s style of education. But the study, presented at last month’s U.S. Distance Learning Association conference, found parts that confused its students and clashed with one Phoenix learning model.
Phoenix’s Axia College has only minimal team learning activities and interaction among students, for example, a problem when it came to Nessie’s “active and collaborative learning benchmark.”
And traditional classifications like freshman and senior? Phoenix doesn’t use them.
More than 1,300 institutions have participated in Nessie since its rollout in 2000. Phoenix, the country’s largest private university, took the plunge last year despite questions about its limitations for online students. (Also last year, Phoenix released its first annual academic report.)
Alexander C. McCormick, Nessie’s director, said the survey was designed to reflect “the typical undergraduate experience.” And despite the growth of online learning, he said, “right now the typical undergraduate experience is still largely residential institutions.”
Yes, he said, some Nessie questions could be problematic for online colleges, and there have been discussions about tweaking the survey.
But Mr. McCormick argued that over all the survey was meaningful to online students. They still have to write papers. They still have to think about course material and apply it to real-life situations. They still need faculty feedback.
“Because I think most of the survey is equally relevant in both settings,” Mr. McCormick said, “I don’t see a need for a major overhaul of the survey.”
Public reporting of specific Nessie results is up to individual institutions. It’s unclear whether Phoenix plans to publicize its Nessie data, as Nessie encourages and other colleges have done. —Marc Parry
Categories: Distance-Education, Student-Life
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