Challenging the ‘distance education deficit’ through ‘motivational emails’

Abstract

Graduation rates in distance higher education are low compared with full-time higher education – often less than 20% compared with full-time UK rates of around 80% – the ‘distance education deficit’. In the University of London International Programmes, the difference between the face-to-face graduation rate of 61.5% and the distance version at 15.7% is particularly marked. A previous paper in Open Learning reported evidence that ‘proactive motivational support’ to distance students had some effect on their success rates. This paper reports an attempt in the International Programmes to use proactive motivational support in the form of ‘motivational emails’ which found an increase in retention of 2.3%. Although this increase was small, it had a positive financial return on investment to the institution. The paper suggests that motivational emails could be made more effective through the use of interactivity, nudging and priming. However, it also argues that distance student retention will always depend less on technology and more on personal human support.

Keywords:

• distance education
• graduation
• retention
• dropout
• motivational emails
• cost/benefits of retention activities

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for financial and administrative support from the Centre for Distance Education and the Laws Programme in the University of London International Programmes.

Notes

1. The UK OU has recently introduced a system of regular email interventions to its students called Model for Integrated Learning and Learner Support (MILLS). These appear to be largely administrative – reminders of assignment due dates and so on. Apparently an evaluation will be carried out, although it is not clear what form that will take.

2. This figure only includes recipients reading emails with HTML turned on so the actual opening rate is likely to be considerably higher.