“Same Same or Different?” Predictors of Student Success in Online Courses

Recent advances in technology have influenced the way educational curricula are utilised outside of traditional classrooms. With more higher education institutions offering online alternatives, it is increasingly important to examine the key predictors of student success in online tertiary education. A research project conducted by the Monash Online—Psychology Education Division (MO-PED) included a review of the predictors of student success literature, followed by focus groups conducted with students, instructors and instructional designers from an online course in Psychology. The study revealed several important findings, most importantly, that discipline-specific factors, rather than generic factors, can be key indicators of effective online learning in any given degree. In the case of the psychology course, a key indicator of effective learning is learner resilience, driven by the sensitive nature of the content delivered in the course. Understanding such discipline-specific key indicators of effective online education success—for online psychology students and more broadly—will allow course designers and administrators to develop strategies specific to the student demographics and content of a course.