Enabling ICT based growth

WP3 Education

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EXPLORING OPPORTUNITIES TO BOOST ADULT STUDENTS’ GRADUATION

-THE REASONS BEHIND THE DELAYS AND DROP-OUTS OF GRADUATION

D.Sc. Päivi Aarreniemi-Jokipelto HAAGA-HELIA School of Vocational Teacher Education

M.Sc. Asta Bäck, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

11th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age,

CELDA 2014, Porto, Portugal

Growing need for adult education growing

Change

New technologies Competition

Work

Family

Hobbies

Frameworks for drop-outs and delays of graduation

• A framework developed by (Jordan et al., 1994; Watt & Roessingh, 1994) defines three factors for drop-outs; push, pull, or fall out of an institution factors.

– Push-out factors, an institution is active and the factors include poor academic performance and disciplinary problems.

– Pull-out factors refer to out-of-institution factors like work or family reasons, or illness.

– Fall out factor mean that a student does not show significant academic progress and in a way a student just disappears.

Objectives of the study

1. Why adult students studying either in the bachelor’s or master’s degree programme in business information technology at HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences have proceeded slowly in their studies or dropped out.

2. What kind of tools and practices could be helpful to students to get them to complete their studies – students’ evaluations of ideated solutions from their perspective, and students’ own ideas.

Research method

• Semi-structured telephone interviews

– Notes taken, duration in average 30 minutes

Back-

ground

• Motivation for studies

• Life situation and changes in it

Studies

• Planning and guidance counselling

• Content and quality

Thesis • Planning and carrying out the thesis

Reasons

• Delays

• Dropping out

New ideas

• Feedback on proposed ideas

• Students’ own ideas

38 students interviewed

Master’s: 60 + 30 credit points

Bachelor’s: 195 + 15 credit points

Average: Average:

55.4 credit points 160.2 credit points

Reasons for delays and drop-outs

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Personal lifesituation and /or

changes in it

Combination of workand studies did not

work

Changes in workingsituation

Interest, motivationended

Career changes Problems related tothe theses

Group work basedlearning

Master's degree students: Reasons for delays and drop-outs

Most important Second in importance Third in importance

Reasons for delays and drop-outs

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Bachelor's degree students: Reasons for delays and drop-outs

Most important Second important Third important Forth important

Evaluation of the ideated tools and practices

The best ideas

Communication tool for the student, workplace supervisor and guidance counsellor at the university.

Contact app to help in easily reaching the guidance counsellor e.g. chat, times to book for a meeting.

Pros

• Forcing parties to communicate

• Good, if helps in early detection of problems

Cons

• Adults do not need something like this

• Email is enough

• The tutor cannot be there in the evenings or weekends

The best ideas (cont’ed)

eLearning

• 42 % regarded as very beneficial, 22 % not beneficial

• ”The most central and critical courses need to be face-to-face but the rest should be offered as eLearning”

• Freedom of time and place

The controversial ideas

Mobile learning in small units

• 36 % for, 36 % against

Strong options of mobile learning

• I do not want to use a device all the time.

• Is smartphone a real tool for learning?

• To learn, I need to concentrate properly.

• Smartphone is good for checking facts.

Automatic notifications

• 30 % regarded as very beneficial, 31 % not beneficial

Cons

• Adults do not need a nanny

• Adults need to learn to manage their time

The worst ideas

Lightweight weekly reporting not favored

• Individual schedules and reporting

Stricter timetables

• Detrimental

Better books and handouts

• Electronic format preferred

Students’ suggestions

• Easy access to school information systems so that small hurdles would not lead to quitting

• Clear course descriptions so that it is easy to evaluate if the course topic and level are suitable

• Live online lectures – adopt good practises from work life

• Personal messages from the guidance counsellor to keep up motivation and to indicate that the student has not been forgotten

Conclusions

Life situation and changes in it not as central as assumed

Connecting the thesis to working life caused delays

Heterogeneous students with very diverging opinions on tools

Processes in which students requested guidance

Guidance counselling

Thesis

Learning process

Prior competence recognition

Alternative ways to study

Someone to be in touch

GRADUATION

Interaction between

a student and a

named guidence

counsellor

Speeding up the graduation

Prior competence recognition

Learning at working places

Online learning Flexible learning

strategies

Knowledge, skills and

competences

Conclusions

Päivi Aarreniemi-Jokipelto

Paivi.Aarreniemi-Jokipelto@haaga-helia.fi

Asta Bäck

Asta.Back@vtt.fi