Flexibel utbildning - för vem? : Framgångsfaktorer i en universitetskurs

• Main Author: Olsson, Ulf
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Karlstads universitet, Estetisk-filosofiska fakulteten 2007
• Subjects: Open distance learning; Prediction of study success; Study approaches,; Distance education; Flexible learning; Higher education; Learning strategies; Distansutbildning; Flexibelt lärande; Flexibel utbildning; Förutsägelse av studieresultat; Högre utbildning; Studiemönster,; Education; Pedagogik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-1067; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:978-91-7063-133-7

Open and flexible learning can offer the prospective student a smorgasbord of possible learning activities. This study will investigate if this form of education really suits all students through an examination of relevant factors such as learning process expectations, attendance motives, study approaches (Biggs SPQ), communication initiative, expectation-based study and, finally, background variables such as socioeconomic status. Are there any variables that correlate positive to academic performance? If so, what are these variables and which are most important? This case study is an analysis of academic success involving 174 students in a business administration course in higher education. Open and flexible learning is an approach in which distance education and campus mode converge. The emphasis shift is to the individual student’s needs and preferences, which enables students to choose there own learning paths and thus stimulates active and independent learning. The goal is to enable more effective management of learning by the learner. Open and flexible learning is often mentioned as a way to access higher education for non-traditional students. There is a large body of research, with a wide variety of theoretical frameworks and models, that try to explain, describe or predict students’ success. The research points to the fact that there is no one simple explanation or solution to help students towards degree completion or fulfilment of their goals. A statistical correlation analysis is conducted in this study and a binary logistic regression is used to construct three models of the most important variables. The first model is based on data about the students that is known before a course starts. The second model includes variables that could be collected at the course start. The third model includes variables that could be collected when the students have attended the course. The result shows that the most important variable for academic success in the course is an achievement-oriented approach to learning. The second most important variable is expectation of the learning process as an individual activity. Other variables such as socioeconomic status and other background variables have less impact. The possibility to predict the academic success is 81 % and the third model explains 46-64 % of the variance of the academic outcome. The conclusion in this study is that the non-traditional students in the Business Administration course receives equal to, if not better results as the other students.