August 11, 2008

Pollster's New Book Likens Online Universities to Zip Cars in Their Growing Appeal

National surveys show that a majority of Americans think online universities offer a lower quality of education than do traditional institutions. But a prominent pollster, John Zogby, says in a book being released on Tuesday that it won’t be long before American society takes to distance education as warmly as it has embraced game-changing innovations like microbrewed beers, Flexcars, and “the simple miracle of Netflix.”

The factor that will close that “enthusiasm gap” is the growing use of distance education by well-respected universities, Mr. Zogby predicts in the book, The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House).

The book, which is based on Zogby International polls and other studies, also touches on public attitudes toward politics, consumer habits, spirituality, and international affairs, and on what men and women really want from each other. Mr. Zogby says polls detect signs of society’s emerging resistance to big institutions, and its de-emphasis on things and places. “We’re redefining geography and space,” he says — and a widening acceptance of online education is part of that trend.

Today there is still a “cultural lag” between the public’s desire for flexible ways to take college courses and what the most-established players offer, Mr. Zogby said in an interview with The Chronicle. “There’s a sense that those who define the standard haven’t caught on yet,” he said.

But Mr. Zogby writes that polling by his organization shows that attitudes about online education are changing fast. His polling also points to other challenges that colleges will face as they race to serve a worldwise generation of 18-to-29-year-olds that Mr. Zogby calls “First Globals.”

In one 2007 poll of more 5,000 adults, Zogby International found that 30 percent of respondents were taking or had taken an online course, and an additional 50 percent said they would consider taking one. Those numbers might skew a little high, he said, because the poll was conducted online and the definition of an online course was broad, including certificate programs or training modules offered by employers.

Only 27 percent of respondents agreed that “online universities and colleges provide the same quality of education” as traditional institutions. Among those 18 to 24 years old, only 23 percent agreed.

An even greater proportion of those polled said it was their perception that employers and academic professionals thought more highly of traditional institutions than online ones.

Rapid Shift in Attitude

Yet in another national poll in December 2007, conducted for Excelsior College, 45 percent of the 1,004 adults surveyed believed “an online class carries the same value as a traditional-classroom class,” and 43 percent of 1,545 chief executives and small-business owners agreed that a degree earned by distance learning “is as credible” as one from a traditional campus-based program.

Differing attitudes in two polls taken within a year, Mr. Zogby said, show that “the gap was closing” — and he said that wasn’t as surprising as it might seem. As with changing perceptions about other cultural phenomena, “these paradigm shifts really are moving at lightning speed.”

That, said Mr. Zogby, is why he writes about online universities in a chapter — “Dematerializing the Paradigm” — that discusses the rise of car-sharing companies like Flexcar (now merged with Zipcar), the emergence of Internet blogs as a source of news and information, and the popularity of microbrewed beer.

And while it may be true that microbrews and Zipcars, at least, are still very much niche products, Mr. Zogby says they are signs of transcendent change — just like the distance-education courses that are being offered by more and more institutions across the country. “When you add up all the niche products, it’s a market unto itself,” he said.

In the book, Mr. Zogby also highlights the emerging influence of the First Globals, whom his book calls “the most outward-looking and accepting generation in American history.” First Globals, he says, are more socially tolerant and internationally aware.

It is these First Globals, he writes, who are shaping what he says is nothing short of a “fundamental reorientation of the American character away from wanton consumption and toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources.”

Higher education, he said in the interview, needs to take notice and adapt. These days, he said, students are much more likely to have experienced other cultures firsthand, either as tourists or because they have immigrated from someplace else. Whether college for them is a traditional complex of buildings or an interactive online message board, said Mr. Zogby, “there is a different student on campus.” —Goldie Blumenstyk

Comments

1. This certainly is consistent with another newly-released book — Disrupting Class — by Clayton Christensen. The book applies Christensen’s “disruptive innovation” principles to education, predicting that online learning and related educational technologies will significantly change the way k/12 education is delivered over the coming decade. Christensen and his co-authors point to a coming “student-centric” approach enabled by online technologies.

   — Ray Schroeder    Aug 12, 08:22 AM    #

2. I had the good fortune of taking my Doctoral program online and was able to sit though the same classes one semester later on-site with the instructor. The Nova Southeastern University courses online and in the classroom were as close to identical for quality, depth and breadth for each course and for the entire program. While not for everyone, those able to commit the time and energy to sitting down every day to work on the lessons are well served by online degree programs.

   — Warren    Aug 12, 11:47 AM    #

3. This is great news, since I am about to graduate with a PhD from Capella University. I can’t speak for the rigor of traditional universities as compared to Capella, but I can tell you for sure that Capella courses have been the hardest courses I have ever had to take. I took graduate courses at three different large universities and Capella courses were the most demanding. A thirty page research paper and other constant research and writing is the norm for every class. Every paper has to be checked for plagiarism by uploading it to an online service. The comps and dissertation process are very difficult as well. There are several layers of review before anything is considered acceptable.

   It is about time the AACSB starts working with online universities to get them accredited. AACSB schools are the only schools that have not been to receptive to recent or future PhD graduates. I kept hearing the same thing from most of them, “…the AACSB doesn’t like online degrees…” or something similar. I am not sure if this is what the AACSB wants or if this is just what the schools of businesses want. Regardless, I received seven different offers and accepted the best offer for a tenure-track position outside of an AACSB school. For all of you AACSB schools that turned me and others away, you need to open your eyes. The “good old boy” club is not going to last forever.

   Disappointed

   — Disappointed    Aug 12, 12:21 PM    #

4. Which “national surveys” is Ms. Blumenstyk referring to? I would like to see the citation. The Sloan Foundation has completed many national annual surveys that find Ms. Blumenstyk’s statement to be a myth. Furthermore, she is mixing apples and oranges – she could be referring to an Eduventure’s study that shows many employers are wary of students with degrees from completely online universities, but that has nothing to do with the perception toward distance or online learning in general. Jeffrey Seaman from the Sloan Consortium notes that “virtual universities,” where “100 percent of the applicant’s courses were taken online, represents less than 1 percent of all institutions offering online programs.” Mr. Zogby’s prediction that the growing use of distance education by “well-respected universities” will make distance learning more popular is accurate, but it is not new. Distance education is already more popular and has seen a steady increase in enrollments for the many years.

   — Christine Mullins    Aug 12, 12:31 PM    #

5. Some of the comments here are interesting. Given the stranglehold that the political left has on the U.S. college campus, one doesn’t wonder that emancipation from the campus, and continued exposure to the practical world, represented by online learning, would be horrifying to these types.

   — fool    Aug 12, 01:36 PM    #

6. From Peter Drucker’s comments to Forbes Magazine a few years ago:
   Mr. Drucker also told us to expect enormous changes that will come in
   higher education, thanks to the rise in satellites and the Internet
   “Thirty years from now big universities will be relics. Universities
   won’t survive. It is as large a change as when we first got the printed
   book.” He believed” High school graduates should work for at least five
   years before going on to college.” It will be news to most college
   presidents and a lot of alumni that “higher education is in deep
   crisis. Colleges won’t survive as residential institutions. Today’s
   buildings are hopelessly unsuited and totally unneeded.” All this from
   a life-long academic.
   How about that!

   — Joe S    Aug 12, 01:53 PM    #

7. “Colleges won’t survive as residential institutions. “

   I tend to agree with that. I wouldn’t be surprised that in 25 years, the only denizens of brick and motar universities will be administrators and athletic teams.

   — jruiz    Aug 12, 02:11 PM    #

8. While I agree that Peter Drucker was very knowledgeable, an expert in management and business theory, some of these predictive comments may be as accurate as the “slightly exaggerated report” of Mark Twain’s death. For some students, especially older, more mature (non-Millenial) students, online courses and programs can be a real God-send, but from my classroom and online teaching experience (the online component of which now goes back 10 years) only about 25-35% really succeed as well as they do in the brick and mortar environment. Then too the campus provides a student-student and student-professor environment that can be imitated, but not duplicated quite as well on-line.

   — Ole Perfesser    Aug 13, 12:15 AM    #

9. ‘Disappointed’ will be pleased to know that, like the respondents in the polls on online education, AACSB are also changing, and changing fast. I know of one completely online institution that has already passed successfully into the Pre-Accreditation phase of the AACSB accreditation process. AACSB are more concerned with learning outcomes than delivery modes.

   What I wish that Zogby and others had asked was “CAN online education offer the same quality of learning as f2f education?” For sure, there are some online providers that offer little more than a CD-ROM and an email address, so the responses to the questions asked by Zogby will always be skewed by these providers if asked in their way. The SLOAN-C survey cited above reported in 2006 that 62% of the senior academic officers in US universities rated the learning outcomes of online education as equal to or better than f2f education. The reasons? Where do I start?

   — john    Aug 13, 05:44 AM    #

10. John, that is great to know that an online university may soon be accredited by the AACSB. Can you share with us who it is? It would be a good motivator for Capella and others.

    — Disappointed    Aug 13, 11:26 AM    #

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