Reasons for Dropping Out in Distance Learning

The reasons why learners withdraw or drop out from their programmes before they finish their first course is often of interest to distance learning institutions. From students' records, the authors found that at the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), whether a student passed or failed his or her first course is a crucial determinant for their re-registration in new courses in the process of completing their study programmes. The re-registration rates of two cohorts of students were 83.94 per cent and 71.34 per cent for those who passed their courses, and were 28.81 per cent and 27.17 per cent respectively for those who failed their courses. Reasons or factors affecting students dropping out from their distance learning studies were found in a study carried out in 2007-08 by using group interviews and then a survey questionnaire. Based on the reasons found in focus group interviews, a questionnaire consisting of possible dropout reasons was devised and administered to all 'dropout' students in the two cohorts. The reasons for student dropout found in the questionnaire study were classified into three categories. The first category of reasons is labelled 'not addressable' and is found to predominantly include students' personal reasons. The second category is labelled 'not readily addressable', and they include reasons such as high tuition fees and heavy amount of coursework. The third category is 'addressable' factors, and these include failure to maintain motivation in study, and so forth. Measures to assist in reducing drop out, based on the 'addressable factors' of dropout revealed by students, are proposed for implementation, which led to a second phase of the research and development project.