By Jessica Love, M.A., M.S., ACUE

Introduction

University professors are responsible for reaching out to students when we see them struggling in our courses. Attempting to connect with students in online courses sometimes poses particular challenges, including knowing the students’ preferred method of communication, time zone conflicts, and barriers to access (Xu & Xu, 2019). In an online environment, it seems the students simply disappear from the classroom no matter the effort of the professor. This begs the question: what do struggling students actually need and want in communication with professors? Are we making decisions about outreach with incomplete data? Do we really understand the communication needs of diverse learners? With these questions in mind, I’ve started the process of trying to figure out how we can better learn about the outreach needs of diverse students who are struggling in online education. My first steps were to analyze the results of my own communication strategies across a full academic year teaching College Composition I. 

Brief Literature Review

Communication in online courses is generally broken down into synchronous and asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication happens in real time and includes things like phone calls and Zoom sessions. Asynchronous communication does not happen in real time and takes place in channels such as discussion boards and emails. Students need regular and substantive synchronous and asynchronous interaction with their professors (Penn State Center for eLearning Initiatives, 2022). Research on students’ needs in online education measures student engagement as the amount of interaction students have with the professor, with each other, and with the course content (Turk et. al., 2024). Turk et. al. (2024) found that students reported interactions with their instructor as the most important part of their engagement in the course, while interactions with peers were least important to their engagement needs. This points to the importance of instructor presence in the classroom to foster student engagement. 

Other lines of inquiry on student communication needs focus on the correlation between instructor presence and student success. Success is measured by students who pass their courses. For these studies, the “results may not speak to academically under-prepared students who may struggle more in online learning environments” (Xu, & Xu, 2019, p. 22). Students who struggle are those whom professors are working to reach and connect with throughout the term using a variety of engagement strategies. So, measurements on instructor presence and student success that primarily center well-prepared students do not necessarily provide us the data we need to make decisions about outreach. 

Methods

During the academic year 2023/2024, I set up a regular communication strategy for doing outreach to students throughout each academic term. I designed my communication based on the developmental theory of marginality and mattering created by Nancy Schlossberg (1989). Gallimore (2021) notes that the theory of marginality and mattering was successfully used at the University of Wisconsin to engage alumni, and the theory has potential for broader application in higher education. The goal is to engage the student by communicating that we care about them as people, and that we care about their individual goals and challenges.

I maintained the schedule each term and tracked students’ response rates, persistence rates, success rates, and overall course U-rates in an attempt to assess the efficacy of my outreach strategies. In Unit 1 I sent a welcome email and posted the same message to the announcements. In Unit 1, I emailed a check-in for students who did not post to the first discussion board by Saturday using Brightspace’s intelligent agent tool, and a response was counted if they responded to the email. During Units 2-10, I emailed students whose overall score in the course fell below 70% and a response was counted if they responded to the email. If I did not get an email response from the student, I would then attempt to reach the student by phone, and a response was counted if they answered the call or returned the call. I did this every week during the 2023/2024 academic year, which spanned four academic terms.    

Results

The results of this year-long informal study were a bit of a surprise. When I emailed students who didn’t post the discussion board in Unit 1, 10% of students responded, 31% of students finished the course, and only 3% of those who finished passed the course. When I emailed students whose scores fell below 70%, 22% responded with an email, 11% finished the course, and 0.5% passed the course. When trying to reach students by phone, 8% responded to the call, 54% finished the course, and 0% passed the course.

Discussion

This study was not representative of all students, nor was it even representative of students who take College Composition I at Purdue Global, but the results were surprising. A significant amount of time and effort went into attempting to reach the students who were struggling. There is a disconnect between what kind of communication my struggling students needed and the communication I provided them. My data led me to pose these questions and perhaps could lead you to ask even more: Where is the disconnect between the struggling student and professor? Is it in the communication tool? Is it in the messaging? Is it something completely unrelated to what the professor is even doing? If the likelihood of a disengaged student passing a course is less than one percent, should a professor be focusing their energy elsewhere?

I can see the next step in this research going in two directions. The first is working to further understand what students need by hearing directly from students who struggle and are ill-prepared for college education instead of measuring student engagement and success by sampling primarily well-prepared students. The second direction this research could potentially go is considering ways professors can better use their time if chasing a disengaged student is ultimately going to lead to 0.5-0% of them passing the course or being successful. What if instead of spending a large amount of time chasing a disengaged student, professors poured that time and energy into students who are engaged, making those students’ educational experience that much better?

In sum, as writing professors, we can engage in the scholar-practitioner model by focusing on our continual growth as communicators ourselves. One of the most important things we need to explore more is starting our problem-solving by knowing our students and learning what their needs are. We teach our students that the foundation of good writing is understanding our audience. Let’s put this into practice and be in constant pursuit of understanding our struggling students’ needs.

References

Gallimore, G. (2021). Marginality and mattering: A framework for diverse alumni engagement. Academic Impressions. https://www.academicimpressions.com/marginality-and-mattering/

Penn State Center for eLearning Initiatives. (2022). Communicating with students in online courses. Pennsylvania State University. https://cei.bd.psu.edu/2022/08/30/communicating-with-students-in-online-courses

Schlossberg, N. K. (1989). Marginality and mattering: Key issues in building community. New Directions for Student Services, 48, 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.37119894803

Turk, M., Turk, S. T., Muftuoglu, A. C., Karakaya, O., & Karakaya, K. (2024). Students’ Expectations and Experiences About Engagement Strategies in Online Courses: A Mixed Methods Study. Online Learning, 28(2), 239–267. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v28i2.3937

Xu, D., & Xu, Y. (2019). The promises and limits of online higher education: Understanding how distance education affects access, cost, and quality. American Enterprise Institute. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596296.pdf.