Day 1 Presentation Peter Shea Presentation: Online Course Enrollment and Degree Completion: The Tipping Point http://opensunysummit2018.edublogs.org/2017/12/11/peter-shea/ Open SUNY Summit 2018 - Annual conference for the SUNY online teaching and learning community of practice. https://commons.suny.edu/cotehub/ February 28 - March 2, 2018, SUNY Global Center, NY, NY. Conference website: http://opensunysummit2018.edublogs.org/ Program: http://opensunysummit2018.edublogs.org/about/program/ Recordings: http://opensunysummit2018.edublogs.org/mediasite/ Materials: http://opensunysummit2018.edublogs.org/registration/materials/ Open SUNY Online Teaching: http://commons.suny.edu/cote/

1. Online Course Enrollment in
Community Colleges and Degree
Completion: The Tipping Point
Peter Shea, PhD
Associate Provost, Online Learning
University at Albany

7. Quality of Online Learning
• 16 Meta-analyses: Online learners and
classroom learners succeed at equivalent
rates on a wide variety of outcome measures.
(Bernard, 2014)
• But many studies find online student succeed
at higher rates and just as many find opposite
conclusion
• What makes the difference?

8. Concerns about OLL and Community
College Students
• Jaggars & Xu (2010) and Xu & Jaggars (2011; 2013): community
college students in Virginia and Washington had higher course
dropout rates and lower grades in online courses compared to
face-to-face courses
• Negative findings were amplified with male students, younger
students, African-American students, and students with lower
GPAs.
• Students who took online courses in their first semester were 5%
less likely to return following semester
• Johnson and Cuellar Mejia & Cook (2015) – also found lower
course grades, higher course withdrawal and an amplification of
achievement gaps between majority and minority students across
California Community College system.

9. Inconsistent Findings
Paradox: at the program level students who take some online courses
attain degrees at higher rates than classroom-only students, despite
lower course level performance.
• At both the state level (Johnson, Cuellar Majia, & Cook, 2015) and
national level (Shea & Bidjerano, 2014) students who took at least
some online courses were more likely to earn an associate’s degree
or transfer to a four-year institution
• Shea and Bidjerano (2017), investigating the 30 community
colleges of the State University of New York did not replicate the
finding that online study amplifies achievement gaps between
minority and majority students.
• At the national level, students with some online coursework were
not more likely to dropout compared to classroom-only peers
(Shea & Bidjerano, 2016).

10. Consistent Findings: Online Course
Load
Higher online course load has negative impact on academic performance.
• In Virginia and Washington students who took a higher proportion of
credits online were less likely to obtain a degree or transfer to a four-year
institution (Jaggars, Edgecombe & Stacey, 2013).
• PAR framework (James, Swan, Daston, 2016) students mixing online and
face-to-face courses or taking only face-to-face courses had up to 1.6
times greater odds of being retained than fully online students.
• Shea & Bidjerano (2017) found odds of degree attainment about 1.5 times
higher for SUNY students with a combination of online and traditional
courses compared to students with classroom courses only.
• Odds of degree attainment 2 to 3 times lower for fully online students
versus students with a mix of online and classroom courses in SUNY.

11. The Tipping Point
• Taking some courses online assists students
toward goal of degree attainment.
• However, taking all online courses results in
lower levels of retention.
• What is the tipping point at which the % of
online course enrollment leads to impaired
degree completion?

12. Research Questions
• RQ1: Is there a threshold for online course enrollment
intensity that jeopardizes prospects for successful
completion of a college degree?
• RQ2: Does the intensity of online coursework modify
the effect of traditional predictors of degree
completion such as enrollment status, qualification for
remedial education, grades, course passing rates?
• RQ3: Does an institution’s overall capacity to graduate
students as compared to peer institutions impact
graduation rates of students who take online classes?

13. Method
• (n=45,557) in SUNY Community Colleges
• Single level and multilevel logistic analyses.
• Longitudinal analysis of 13 semesters data
• Outcome was attainment of a degree of any kind
(Certificate, Associates, or Bachelors)
• Main factor of interest was online load
• Definition: proportion of online credits attempted
of the total credits attempted by a student.

14. Controls
All models included controls for traditional predictors of degree attainment
consisting of:
1. demographic factors (gender, age, majority vs. minority status),
2. first semester indicators (whether the student was a Pell grant recipient,
qualified for remedial coursework, and first community college when
he/she began an Associate degree program for the first time),
3. last semester indicators (number of credits completed relative to total
number of credits attempted in one’s last semester, last semester GPA,
last program (Humanities vs. Other), last institution’s graduation rates,
and sector of last institution (CC vs. other), and
4. cumulative measures (whether the student ever transferred to a 4yr.
institution, total number of semesters being enrolled part or full time).
Net of these predictors we found the following results:

15. RQ1 Is there a Tipping Point?
Figure 1: Effect of Online Course Load on
Degree Completion

16. Discussion
• 40% of coursework is the upper limit for
beneficial effect of online enrollment on
degree completion.
• For optimum degree-completion benefit
community college students could be advised
to enroll at ratio of three F2F courses to two
online courses for full time students.

17. RQ2: Effect of Overall Institutional
Graduation Rates
Figure 2: Interaction between Online Load and
Overall Institutional Graduation Rates

18. Institutional Graduation Rate
• Students enrolled at institutions with the
highest graduation rates can mix up to 60% of
online coursework with classroom
• average of 40% at all institutions
• only 10% at the least effective institutions

19. RQ3: Effect of Remedial Status
Figure 3: Interaction between Remedial Status
in Fall 2012 and Online Load

20. Remedial Students
• Students who qualify for remedial education have
lower graduation rates, but these improve
through a mix of online and classroom instruction
• Remedial students can mix online and classroom
courses on par with non-remedial students
• Approximately 3 F2F courses and 2 online courses
confers benefits regarding enhanced degree
attainment.

21. Questions?