Nontraditional student persistence in the online course environment: factors that influence completion.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20256460

Persistence in online courses at colleges and universities is an issue, which continues to come to the forefront. In the last decade, the rapid growth of online courses has prompted a more focused view on this type of learning. Attrition has been identified as a more significant issue with online courses compared to their face-to-face counterparts. Therefore, more scrutiny has been focused on if this type of learning is an effective modality or college-level education. More students who take online courses have been identified or labeled as nontraditional students, which means there can be more outlying factors influencing whether or not students persist to completion of their degree program. The purpose of this study was to identify and understand factors influencing persistence for undergraduate, nontraditional students enrolled in first term online courses. This study examined external and internal factors as well as student characteristics and skills proposed to affect persistence with Rovais (2003) Composite Model of Persistence as the framework.