For anyone who has spent any time on this site trying to see if online education is a good idea, you will know that those of us who have been doing this for a while probably have several characteristics in common. Those are tenacity, determination, the ability to balance all of life’s challenges, and all the things that make us good students. I have frequently mentioned that if a person cannot commit to getting a degree (either on-campus or on-line) it’s probably not a good idea to start.
Before a person jumps into this world of distance education, they need to have all their ducks in a row, so speak. Maturity, stability at home, and other things that could potentially go sideways need to be on a level playing field need to be under control or managed. Distance education is not easy. Disregard the marketing hype about it being easy. Disregard the hype about it being convenient. Sometimes it is convenient, but that does not translate to “easy” or a reduced workload.
I have found a very interesting and complex study that shows how emotional intelligence can be a predictor of success in distance education. Emotional Intelligence (EI) describes ability, capacity, skill or a self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups.
The research paper starts like this:
As students increasingly opt for online classes, it becomes more important for administrators to predict levels of potential academic success. This study examined several factors to characterize successful online college students, including emotional intelligence (EI), persistence, personality, age, gender and previous online experience among students attending community college. Factor analysis revealed two profiles labeled ‘EI’ and ‘Persuasive’. EI was positively correlated with GPA and resilience. Males had significantly higher EI than females. EI was unrelated to age, personality, number of semesters completed, program of study and previous online experience. Conclusions were that there may be a profile of the successful online student that could be used in marketing, advisement, quality assessment and retention efforts.
To download the whole paper,
click here.
Do you have any questions about distance education
or anything in this post? Feel free to contact Scott anytime!
Anonymous comments are disabled
About WheelCipher
Scott is a strategic consultant in the customer care industry and an avid amateur photographer.
You can see his work at http://gallery.scottdavis.info
He has experience in the high-technology industry in management, engineering, and support positions with Time Warner Cable, Dell Computer Corporation, UUNET Technologies, Wayport and others.
Scott started his degree program in 2003, and had no prior college credit before jumping into the distance learning environment. He graduated in October 2007 having attained an A.A.S. in Information Technology and a B.S. in Management from Kaplan University.
In 2009, he graduated with his MBA from Norwich University and is now a student at Gonzaga University.
Scott LOVES fan mail. You can e-mail him any questions about distance learning at sdavis@wheelcipher.net