Academic self -regulation explains persistence and attrition in Web -based courses: A grounded theory

Advances in technology have greatly impacted higher education. Web-based courses have increased dramatically in number over the past five years; however, this increase is overshadowed by the purportedly high attrition rate. The primary purpose of this investigation was to build a grounded theory to explain why some students persist in web-based courses while others drop out.;Using a grounded-theory approach for simultaneous data collection and analysis, a theory was developed inductively from the data. Following the grounded-theory design of Glaser (1978) and Strauss and Corbin (1990), data were generated from interviews, participant observations, demographic surveys, internal and external college and university documents, and theoretical memos. Thirty-five students from two institutions of higher education were selected first by random purposive sampling, then by theoretical sampling. They were interviewed either in person, via phone, or by E-mail. All tape-recorded interviews were transcribed. Data were analyzed with methods of constant comparative analysis using WinMAX software. Throughout the analysis, in vivo codes were used to avoid losing the subtle nuances offered by the students. The grounded-theory process revealed an extant theory: self-regulated learning, which explained both attrition and persistence in web-based courses. A body of literature about self-regulated learning exists and helped inform the final stages of data collection and analysis.;The core variable, academic self-regulated learning, was the variable that was related to more variables than any other and the one that explained the process of persistence and attrition. Help-seeking behavior was the most important of the self-regulatory behaviors; students who were able to adapt this behavior to the online milieu were the most successful. Four other major themes emerged: (1) the teaching-learning relationship is strongly esteemed by students, (2) the value of student-to-student interaction is tenuous, (3) the advice students are provided about Internet courses is almost nonexistent, and (4) the pacing preference of students is also mixed. Well-defined goals functioned as the driving force behind self-regulated students' ability to persist.;The findings of this study suggest that more attention should be directed at providing students advice based on self-regulatory behaviors. Future research should be directed at identifying the self-regulatory behaviors that are necessary for successful completion of web-based courses. Online, domain-specific, self-regulatory behaviors need to be identified, as well. Quantitative studies should be conducted to verify the findings of this study.