COURSE FORMAT MATTERS: EFFECTS ON STUDENT RETENTION AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN TWO-YEAR POSTSECONDARY INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Retention rates are considerably lower for students attending two-year postsecondary institutions when compared to their counterparts at four-year postsecondary institutions. This disparity may stem from the greater number of nontraditional students at two-year postsecondary institutions, who often struggle to balance their studies and non-academic responsibilities. In order to enhance the academic performance and persistence of students at two-year postsecondary institutions, educators have offered course formats that are more flexible than the traditional face-to-face format. This study compared student retention and academic performance across the following three course formats: traditional (16-week faceto-face), online (16-week online), and online compressed (5-week online). This study also investigated if the effects of six student and course characteristics (gender, ethnicity, age, cumulative GPA, enrollment status, and STEM) varied across the different course formats in terms of student retention and academic performance. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze the persistence and academic performance of 22,280 students attending seven community colleges in Hawaiʻi. Results demonstrated that the 5-week online course format yielded higher academic performance than the traditional course format. However, there was no significant difference between the 16-week online and traditional course formats in terms of academic performance. For student retention, the 5-week online course format produced the highest retention rates, followed by the traditional course format with the 16-week online course format producing the lowest retention rates. Overall, the effects of the six characteristics on student outcomes varied across the different course formats. This study concluded that 5-week online courses had the potential to enhance student retention and academic performance at two-year postsecondary institutions. Keywords: student retention, academic performance, online compressed courses, flexibility, multilevel modeling of categorical outcomes, community colleges, nontraditional students