The missing HEROs: the absence of, and need for, PsyCap research of online university students

ABSTRACT

This research is a narrative critical literature review of the use of the PsyCap (psychological capital) model to study online university students’ learning experiences in order to understand their persistence. PsyCap (Hope, Efficacy, Resilience and Optimism, abbreviated as HERO) has been proven an effective model of understanding the intrinsic characteristics that motivate working adults to persist in workplace excellence. Prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, working adults comprised the majority of the online university student population. Online programmes were formed and developed predominantly to serve their needs, yet these students struggle to persist and succeed. The PsyCap model used to understand their success in the workplace is underutilised in studying their success as online learners. Students’ individual needs and expectations have transitioned from the baby boomer generational cohort to millennials and now entering Generation Z. This article synthesises the cross-section of literature canvassing online education, student generational cohort transitions and the use of the PsyCap model up to the present era. Results reveal that the changing psychological capacity of university students warrants further research of the PsyCap model with relation to online university student persistence.

KEYWORDS:

• PsyCap
• psychological capital
• online education
• millennials
• COVID-19

Introduction

A narrative critical literature review was conducted on the use of the PsyCap (psychological capital) model to study online university students’ learning experience so as to understand student persistence. PsyCap has been proven an effective model of understanding the intrinsic characteristics that motivate working adults to persist in workplace excellence. Prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, working adults comprised the majority of the online university student population. Yet little research on student PsyCap has been conducted.

This paper provides history to online education and associated pedagogy, illuminating its transformation in both student profiles and needs. Following a brief overview of the PsyCap model and its application to working adult populations, we present a critique of current literature applying PsyCap in university settings and conclude with potential for future research in this uncharted territory. The constructs of this review are found in Tables 1 and 2 in the Appendix.

Table 1. Search results for student population criteria.

Source	Reason	Results
UoL online library databases (PR)	Extensive subscriptions permit options to filter full-text access and peer-reviewed, ensuring higher quality research presented.	262 Unique results across various keyword groupings. Only 6 pertained to university students including 4 specific to online delivery.
Professional repositories (REP)	Author-members provide access to their works that can include subscription-only access titles not available in the UoL subscriptions.	Researchgate.net 142 Academia.edu 14,763 non-filterable SSRN.com 0 Articles duplicated titles already found in step 1 and/or did not meet our target demographic.
Google search (WEB)	With three to five billion websites on the Internet, this was given last priority. Inability to filter results based upon the expertise of the source/author results in waste.	No results met our criteria. Nine related articles did not pertain to our targeted demographic.
Purposeful selection (GREY)	Our team was familiar with organisations that provide data useful to context of this research. These can be government, NGO’s, universities, formidable foundations, or well-respected industry periodicals.	World Health Organization Inside Higher Education National Center for Education Statistics The Irish Times OECD Open University University of Maryland Global Campus Pew Research Center Babson Research Group University of California

Table 2. Results for articles specific to application of PsyCap to university students including online.

Authors	Publication type (PR, REP, WEB, GREY)	Methods/measurement instruments/sample size	Database
Daspit et al. (2015)	PR	275 Undergraduate online in US; median age 26.9 years; self-developed Likert scale survey.	Education Research Complete
Goertzen and Whitaker (2015)	PR	781 Undergraduate onground/online/hybrid including international students; surveyed 3 times in program; median age 23.8 years; instruments varied per PsyCap component measured.	Educational Research Complete
Kirikkanat and Soyer (2018)	PR	400 Undergraduates onground in Turkey; median age 21 years; variety of instruments in multifactorial predictor correlational research design.	Scopus
K.W. Luthans et al. (2019)	PR	176 Undergraduate onground in US; adapted PsyCap scale plus Short Grit scale.	Business Source Complete
Ortega-Maldonado and Salanova (2018)	PR	682 Undergraduate onground in Spain; median age 22.6 years; PsyCap and Brief COPE instruments.	Academic Search Complete
Yoder (2017)	WEB	250 Graduates of North American colleges; median age 32 years; self-designed instruments.	Seattle Pacific University Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Background to the study’s purposes

The fields of positive organisational behaviour (in particular psychological capital or PsyCap) and online university education paradoxically have grown and developed on parallel paths that have yet to align. Online university studies found their early support in business schools and extension campuses servicing ‘non-traditional’ adult learners: the working adult. Andragogy rather than pedagogy provided the perspective to design and deliver programmes. A common model developed that centred upon application of theory to students’ work experiences. Their lived workplace reality became the laboratory for inquiry, critique, and experimentation. Online discussion forums facilitated knowledge construction as a class. Individual assignments served their traditional purpose of knowledge construction and synthesis. Early on this model made use of learning teams. Teams were intended to facilitate communities of inquiry (COI) and emotional engagement (EE) in a more personal manner than large class discussions. Studies indicate that collaboration and teaming skills were desired outcomes of working adults as well as necessary to their perseverance (Bartle, 2019; Evans & Haughey, 2013; House-Peters et al., 2019; Larreamendy-Joerns & Gaea Leinhardt, 2006).

Coinciding with this, in the 1980s and 1990s, the study of organisational behaviour developed out of the perspective of modelling organisational structures and styles. With the encouragement to study positive psychology given by the American Psychological Association (Kogan, 2001), the application of this knowledge into the field of management grew into the study of positive organisational behaviour. Many earlier theories were adapted into this new perspective of seeing how to positively motivate functional behaviour and personal well-being (rather than focusing on dysfunctional, abnormal and ill-being). New theories were developed, including the notion of PsyCap. PsyCap helps to explain the components of psychological resources (hope, efficacy, resilience, optimism abbreviated as HERO) that, when high in capacity, work synergistically in synthesis to produce excellence in performance grounded in personal well-being and happiness. PsyCap studies have successfully explained individual workplace motivation, achievement, and attitude (citizenship behaviours) within the real context of age cohort disparities, multi-cultural diversity, changing expectations between employers and workers, and new technologies (Dawkins et al., 2013).

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the potential benefit of PsyCap research to online university students’ experiences. While in recent years, the paths of these two fields of study have occasionally intersected, they have yet to align into a congruent investigation that we posit may shed new light on students’ persistence in their studies. Students in the online classroom are the same individuals whose PsyCap is studied within the workplace (Friedman, 2017), and online programs in many ways have been built to incorporate or replicate (through teaming) workplace realities. There is a natural ‘fit’ of the model to this suggested application.

Methods

The research was conducted 16–19 May 2019 with a focus on

• Documentation of the evolution of online university education to include the student demographic services and andragogical approaches used;

• Foundational literature in psychological capacity and ancillary psychological devices that support it;

• Existing studies meeting our criteria for study population.

Our team sought literature with a study population of four criteria: (1) working adults; (2) online not face-to-face students; (3) university not lower grades; and (4) students not teachers or school employees. Under this umbrella, we sought to include the historical development of the use of online as a delivery method, the approximate demographic profile of students, and associated pedagogies engaged. Additionally, ancillary material that spoke to the psycho-behavioural influences upon this demographic such as psychological lifespan development, generational cohort values and shared societal experiences. The narrative review was chosen to canvass available literature, giving an opportunity to investigate gaps in the current body of available knowledge and raise questions rather than provide answers (Ferrari, 2015).

Systematic reviews risk exclusion of literature that does not support that researcher’s criteria and so may not represent the full spectrum of knowledge available on the topic. Narrative reviews risk researcher bias as well, primarily in the selection of material. However, when the topic itself has been understudied, possibility of such bias is mitigated. The absence of existing research in this area also limits a realistic use of a configurative systematic review methodology (Newman & Gough, 2020) as research with specific application to online university students must first exist to synthesise and configure into new knowledge.

The narrative approach allows researchers to provide a context in the history and development of the topic. Critical reviews also permit researchers to access literature specifically aligned to the situation of the understudied topic (Green et al., 2006; Wilczynski, 2017). The existing use of the PsyCap model to research online university student experiences is limited. Conducting a narrative review permitted our team to bring to this topic literature that explains the applicability and benefit of this model in this particular setting (online university student experiences). Although our intent was not a synthesis of the literature (Suri, 2011), an interpretive review with a purposive approach to selection was taken to identify literature of expertise on PsyCap or ancillary topics. This permitted us to highlight information-rich literature towards the goal of providing a focused understanding rather than empirical generalisations. The narrow scope provides natural boundaries rendering this study replicable (see Appendix A).

A brief history of the evolution of adult education and online university-level studies

Non-traditional education of the twentieth century was presented by numerous names. While distance learning has existed for centuries in the format commonly known as ‘correspondence studies’, its rapid growth in the US and Europe began after World War II. In the US, the University of Maryland Global College was founded for the purpose of providing education to troops remaining stationed around the world for post-war peace efforts. Traditional face-to-face classrooms in a non-traditional schedule of evenings and weekends eventually grew to add online instruction in the 1990s (University of Maryland Global College, 2019). Whereas UMGC began by using traditional methods to pioneer adult education to the masses, the United Kingdom’s Open University (OU) was founded in 1969 specifically to use technology to provide education at a distance (Open University, 2018). Simultaneously, in the US, recordings of university courses were provided on public television. By the 1990s, many well-known universities joined in pioneering online university education. Additionally, consortiums began to develop for pooling of courses and easing articulation of transfer across colleges.

Thus, birthed out of distance education and with the diffusion of technology across populations, online studies grew from being a delivery channel to becoming a learning experience. ‘Consequently, models of distance education, which examined aspects of where learning was to be encouraged and supported without a teacher’s presence, have been replaced by e-learning models of how learning can be best enabled with technologies’ (Evans & Haughey, 2013, p. 133). By the turn of the twenty-first century, online education had been diffused worldwide, particularly prominent in developed countries with sufficient technology infrastructure and from which adult education, distance education, and the technologies themselves were pioneered (House-Peters et al., 2019). It was in some state of flux in terms of developing instructional approaches that ‘understood’ this modern student. Yet, commonly agreed was that this medium aimed at the working adult and single or working mother.

We catch snapshots in time with articles such as Bagnato’s (2004) in which she assembled opinions and comments from a variety of US colleges. The vignette captures whom the practitioners saw in their classroom: the ‘harried commuters, working mothers and traveling soldiers’ (p. 6). The consensus uncovered in her research confirmed that accessibility of class at or after work was the student’s primary consideration. Medium and large public institutions were the primary providers at that time with 88–95% offering distance education in academic year 2000–2001. Meanwhile, a separate study looked at the overall US college population during this period. Results found students’ primary purpose for college was to make more money, somewhat more important than the education itself and significantly rated higher than intrinsic personal development motives (Twenge & Donnelly, 2016).

Evolution of andragogical thinking

Historically, even though the notion of andragogy was promoted by Knowles in 1970 (Bartle, 2019), a teacher-centred pedagogical approach continued towards non-traditional adult learners until later decades. The andragogical approach became the primary model engaged for online learning due to the promotion of online programmes to corporations. Student-centred, the instructor’s focus is guiding the learner through self-discovery of the subject studied. There is an assumption that the learner desires to learn the subject (rather than merely gain the credit for the course) and so trust is an assumed factor in the instructor–student relationship (Bartle, 2019; Murray, 2018). Case studies rather than academic research papers, small group discussion, workplace simulations and problem-solving exercises provide the structure within which the student’s existing knowledge base – life experiences – is examined from the theoretical perspective of the subject studied. The development of self-dependency/independency and learning the process of inquiry itself is presumed to support intrinsic motivation to learn, becoming a disposition carried over into the workplace. Bartle (2019) described the dynamic as one of inquiry-based learning encompassing the student’s whole life. This process of developing self-mastery and knowledge that is holistically applicable aligns with the HERO model of PsyCap.

Collaborative learning grew rapidly in North American and European venues in the 1990s. Replicating workplace training, online teachers were facilitators and students were participants, with emphasis on students’ responsibility for their own learning. Universities became part of the ‘educational pipeline’ and presented themselves in corporate-friendly terms such as ‘educational providers’. Into the early part of the twenty-first century, real-time technologies that shaped the behaviour and expectations of students began to find their way into online education by necessity. “A result of these processes is the cooptation and transmutation of academic knowledge into “a commodity that can be readily exchanged for the price of a book, a consulting fee, or university tuition (Heyman, 2000: 299)„ (House-Peters et al., 2019, p. 87).

Brief overview of positive organisational behaviour and PsyCap

It is not our intent to elaborate extensively upon the history of PsyCap and positive organisational behaviour (POB). The pioneer in this field of study, Fred Luthans, has provided this in numerous articles and other researchers have duplicated the same in their own studies. We present the basic premise that provides the lens through which the aforementioned situation can be viewed.

The theory of psychological capital (PsyCap) developed within the body of research that has come to be known as positive psychology. Its purpose was to develop the field of psychology beyond its historic focus on the treatment of mental health as an illness. The intent was to also address wellness so as to advance knowledge and application of furthering the well-being of individuals. Out of this grew Luthans’s development of the psychological capital model (Luthans & Youssef-Morgan, 2017). It is defined as follows:

An individual’s positive psychological state of development that is characterized by: (1) having confidence (efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success. (Luthans et al. 2017, cited in Luthans & Youssef-Morgan, 2017, p. 340)

Interestingly, until very recently, there has been little application of this model to the educational learning environment even though its predecessor studies are widely used in education. These would include such researches as Bandura’s (1989) work in self-efficacy, those captured by Walker et al. (2006) in resiliency inter alia. Applications of the PsyCap model to education typically pertain to the teacher as employee, support of students with mental illness, or children at lower levels of education. Minimal research exists for adult students in university-level education particularly online education and/or cross-cultural environments. Yet, it is particularly relevant in online university education as this medium’s non-traditional learner population (adult learners) has historically been prominent in its growth as a medium of instructional delivery (Bagnato, 2004; House-Peters et al., 2019). Online university students, especially at the level of graduate education, are working adults as compared to traditional-aged students (Friedman, 2017; Grabowski et al., 2016). The factors influencing their psychological resources, mental mindset and persistence in career success are similar to, if not the same as, those that influence their educational success.

Luthans et al.’s (2011) work incorporated positive psychological capital into use of managing individual behaviour within organisations. Although the application of their model is within a different setting, the model itself exemplifies that sought for adult learner success: personal mastery and a ‘mastery-oriented mindset’. Of particular note is their discussion of agentic capacity to develop a broader range of hope pathways facilitated by optimism to elicit problem-solving behaviours. The increased motivation to persevere and belief in one’s ability to ‘bounce back’ given by hope leads to enhanced self-perception of one’s confidence in solving problems and overcoming challenges. This efficacy ‘to do’ spurs the action taken. This development of the mastery mindset is furthered by the social support mechanism of positive feedback that, coupled with PsyCap, build within the mindset self-appraisals of one’s ability to succeed in unique situations. Similarly, the many challenges of adult learners, particularly faced by those in lesser-developed economies, provide ongoing unique situations to overcome. For this reason, the PsyCap model seems particularly useful in understanding and assisting student persistence in online studies.

Recent literature addressing PsyCap and student success in university studies

With this context of the working adult student and educational setting, we researched studies of university students’ PsyCap. The studies were critiqued with the above knowledge of the online university student demographic to identify those that directly studied this population, studies of other university student populations (face-to-face traditional), and hybrid studies of both. As an under-developed area of research, results were extremely limited. Findings and discussion are as follows:

Kirikkanat and Soyer (2018) studied face-to-face undergraduate students in Turkey for academic confidence. The authors relied upon definitions from Bandura (1977) and Schunk (1991) of academic self-efficacy as one’s own belief in the impact of their academic skills upon their performance. The authors expanded this to their definition of academic confidence as ‘one’s general beliefs about his study behaviours necessary for his academic survival in higher education’ (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003; Sander & Sanders, 2006 as cited in Kirikkanat & Soyer, 2018, p. 144).

Ortega-Maldonado and Salanova (2018) sought to find relationships between PsyCap, meaning-focused coping and satisfaction towards performance. Engaging traditional, face-to-face undergraduate students in Spain, the authors saw PsyCap as one of a combination of ‘pieces to the puzzle’ of success.

Both studies addressed aspects of coping as ancillary to PsyCap. However, Avey, Reichard et al. (2011, as cited in Dawkins et al., 2013) explain that through the synergistic nature of PsyCap it ‘incorporates the coping mechanism(s) that the four individual components have in common’ (p. 350). From our perspective, taking the full four components of PsyCap, their symbiotic relationship and synergistic nature, in total, it may be more effective to consider academic confidence as a factor in the efficacy component of PsyCap rather than viewing one distinct from the other. Similarly, the coping skills studied by Ortega-Maldonado and Salanova (2018) might be better if viewed within the perspective of PsyCap as the synergistic whole, as this is a differentiating feature of the PsyCap model. The difference in perspective is one of top-down in which the totality of factors into, and outcomes from, PsyCap synergy are viewed within their interrelated actions. Research from this perspective could enlighten a different approach to curriculum development that endeavours to build psychological capacity. Again, these studies did not address the adult working student in online classes but they do give us views of the use of PsyCap research in collectivist cultures.

The following articles studied student characteristics in educational and workplace settings:

K.W. Luthans et al. (2019) present a recent study of academic psychological capital as it pertains to university studies. The study focused on traditional, face-to-face undergraduate business students. Their use of Duckworth et al.’s (2007) definition of grit as ‘as a trait-level perseverance and passion for long-term goals’ (p. 36) provided the basis for investigating its relationship to PsyCap. The authors found that the resources of PsyCap benefitted students who possessed ‘grit’ with motivation towards academic performance.

The dissertation of Yoder (2017) studied 369 US students to develop a ‘Holistic Development Model’. The author posits that the measurement of students’ success should transcend economic measures and instead include intrinsic factors of critical thinking, PsyCap and psychological well-being.

Bissessar et al. (2019) studied the persistence of online graduate students through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT). Findings include the manifestation of intrinsic motivators as present in participants’ self-regulation and emotional control (overcoming anxiety, depression, frustration, etc.). Participants were also found to be high in ability to problem solve solutions and find new pathways to goal achievement.

Baluku et al. (2018) applied SDT and PsyCap to entrepreneurs. In addition to economic outcomes, the authors concluded that psychological outcomes of goal achievement need to be considered as a measure of success. Their studies found that the components of SDT led to growth in psychological resources and that autonomy is ‘a precondition necessary for entrepreneurs to use their psychological resources’ (p. 491).

The factors identified in these studies are incorporated in the PsyCap model. These benefits of higher education forming the whole person align to the very outcomes sought by business and industry. World-renowned consultancies such as Deloitte and Accenture expound upon the need for social skills coupled with critical thinking and problem solving in employees (Black et al., 2019). At the same time, they recognise the expectations of the millennial generation for a holistic work experience. Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman and Lance’s 2010 study supports the expectations of US millennials to be provided with a work experience that accommodates their leisure and lifestyle away from the workplace. This was reaffirmed by Campbell et al. (2017), alerting to the changing needs of the millennial as student and employee. Yoder’s (2017) suggestion for measuring student success may be more complicated than current educational practices in its multi-faceted construct. However, this could aid higher education in its partnership with business to develop programming that is realistically holistic, formative, and better able to meet societal needs worldwide. The combination of these studies also indicates an opportunity for further research into linkages of the SDT components (competence, relatedness and autonomy) to developing psychological resources leading to PsyCap synergy.

With a possible linkage of psychological well-being to high PsyCap and student success, intervention techniques are important to student persistence. In the workplace, Luthans et al. (2008) used computer-mediated training to deliver intervention intended to aid the development of PsyCap amongst participating employees. At the time of their study, the authors had determined that web-based technologies were more effective than face-to-face for some learning needs. Their study demonstrated that the core construct of PsyCap could be developed through a focused intervention in this manner. Using web-based technologies and working with employee-participants mirrors adult learners in online courses. Thus, this presents an opportunity to experiment with student intervention strategies for online university programmes.

Psychological capital theory and online learning

Community of inquiry and PsyCap

Daspit et al. (2015) ventured into the well-studied Community of Inquiry (COI) framework with the elements of PsyCap in a study of 275 online students. The COI model addresses the three presences of teaching, social and cognitive to learning experience. Teaching presence pertains to both the course design and the instructor’s facilitation. Social presence is the dynamic created by students’ interaction and interrelationships that develop from it. Cognitive presence is the initiating of learning actions, exploring the topic studied, integrating this into knowledge and ideas, and problem solving. Thus, COI focuses on the collective social context without consideration of what the individuals involved bring into that context. The authors endeavoured to demonstrate that the students’ motivation to learn was important to understanding the impact of these three presences upon student learning. They viewed PsyCap as associated with this. The four components of PsyCap are found as the object of teaching presence.

Similarly, the authors inform that aspects of social presence of COI mirror the outcomes of high PsyCap in the workplace. Citizenship behaviours are other-centred workplace outcomes as well as a disposition needed to develop a positive community of learning in the online classroom. Finally, for reasons similar to those of which we have already spoken above, Daspit et al. (2015) assert that PsyCap equips students for higher performance. The results of their study found that PsyCap and its elements manifested in outcomes of higher academic performance for online students similar to its manifestation of higher performance in a workplace setting.

PsyCap developed in a US leadership programme

Earlier, Goertzen and Whitaker (2015) posited a viable perspective in the development of PsyCap throughout students’ programmes of study, taking into consideration the impact of the curriculum design. The authors begin with a reminder from Luthans et al. (2013) that education needs to move beyond ‘the primary focus on developing “human capital” of “what you know” and social capital of “who you know” to emphasize the development of PsyCap of “who you are” or “who you are becoming”’ (Goertzen & Whitaker, 2015, p. 774). The authors explain how the formative nature of leadership development programmes (to develop both the leader and leadership skills) can result in developing the elements of PsyCap. Encompassing face-to-face, online domestic and hybrid modes of study, their undergraduate student participants experienced the synergistic outcome of PsyCap early in their programme and measured a regression of this at the end of their programme. The authors suggest the change in curriculum approach at the end of the programme, the demands of the coursework, expectations and other factors may have resulted in students losing their confidence (efficacy) to develop pathways (hope) as well as the capacity to problem solve (resiliency) needed to avoid obstacles (affecting optimism). Of interest to us are the results for both the fully online programme as well as the hybrid. The hybrid programme was delivered to partnering face-to-face institutions at international locations. In each area of PsyCap, the means were higher than the overall sample for online students while slightly lower for the international campuses. Significant differences occurred in self-efficacy for all modes of delivery. Online students demonstrated significant differences across all components of PsyCap except resiliency whereas this was found significant for face-to-face students. Optimism was also found as significant for the international students. It is important to note that the average age of their student participants across all three modes of instruction was only 23.8 years, when the average age of the fully online student in the US is 32 years (Friedman, 2017).

Discussions

This study aimed to illuminate the potential benefit of PsyCap research to online university students’ experiences. We discuss below the main results arising from this study under the respective headings.

Increasing enrolments, decreasing success

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, online university enrolments saw continual increase and interest. In 2017, the OECD predicted over half of the millennial population of member countries to enter bachelor degree programmes, referring to the ‘exploding demand for tertiary education worldwide’ including those who cannot find access in their home country (OECD, 2017, p. 10). In 2018, Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and Culture approved 400 universities to offer online courses (Global Business Guide, 2018).

However, in developed economies such as the US, face-to-face campus enrolments dropped a total of one million students in 2012–2016 with the highest decline in 2016. According to the Babson Research Group, 31% of all US students took at least one course online, and half of those attended school fully online. (Seaman et al., 2018). As of 2017, 2.2 million students, or 13% of the total US undergraduate students, were taking fully distance education courses (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). The addition of online courses to a face-to-face traditional student’s schedule demonstrated improved completion rates (Paterson, 2018).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional programmes worldwide were moved to fully online delivery. It is anticipated that many colleges may continue their programmes online in the upcoming school year (DePietro, 2020; O’Brien, 2020). However, in the past, fully online programmes were typically designed for the adult (age 25+), non-traditional student. Additionally, learning efficacy was significantly lower resulting in low completion rates for online students (Lederman, 2018). These indicate a need to rethink design and delivery of online education, including new applications of models such as PsyCap.

A shared paradox

A universal call by business and industry is for universities to produce critical thinkers and problem solvers. House-Peters et al. (2019) point out that ‘In online education, critical pedagogies translate transformative teaching and learning strategies via technologies to emphasize the coproduction of knowledge, destabilizing the power relations embedded within the categories of “teacher” and “learner”’ (p. 89). The very actions of critical thinking are those engaged in PsyCap. By its synergistic nature, the effect of PsyCap as a whole is greater than any one of its components alone (Mohanty & Kolhe, 2016). The mind engages in appraisal of its situation and probability of success, and the inter-relational nature of its four components results in a collectively compelling positive force when circumstances dispose the individual to foster each. The necessity of developing critical thinking in order to develop the PsyCap needed for success both in online studies and in the workplace is an area deficient in the study.

Dawkins et al. (2013) advise future research in organisational applications of PsyCap to embrace PsyCap profiling that considers external influences. This is applicable to education studies as well. Opportunities for future researches include capturing details of the means to success used by students already identified as high in PsyCap and then using that information to pilot inclusion of these approaches into a course curriculum. Contextual studies would align with House-Peters et al.’s (2019) assertions regarding the importance of understanding how student cultures, as well as the educational experience, contribute to the shaping of their identity.

Daspit et al.’s (2015) well-planned study of PsyCap as part of community of inquiry aids us in validating connections we see intuitively through our experience as educational professionals. However, we posit that an opportunity for a new perspective remains unstudied: that community of inquiry (COI) may be an external variable or an environmental factor that feeds into PsyCap. Therefore, rather than PsyCap being a fourth component of COI, there is room to study COI as an influencer of the components within PsyCap and vice versa. This aligns with Dawkins et al.’s (2013) recommendation that future PsyCap studies delve more deeply into the currently identified components of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism rather than diverging into experimenting with expansion of its components.

Still adult learners but a different generation of adults

Lack of efficacy

The ‘ME’llennials have been noted for desiring the academic credential more than the knowledge and experience gained from acquiring it (Buckner & Strawser, 2016). Twenge and Donnelly (2016) suggest an increased consumer mentality amongst this generation leads to learning as a means to an end rather than being the end itself. The authors raise concerns with the implications upon student learning when knowledge is not valued, particularly that it is then not retained. Meanwhile, employers are suffering the outcomes of this, discovering that their ‘educated’ labour pool lacks the thinking skills presumed to come with a higher education.

Respondents to a Pew Research Center study are sceptical in particular about the ability of online education to produce outcomes necessary in the near future. Says respondent Erhardt Graeff: ‘Learning how to learn and how to lead in online and offline contexts and how to translate those ideas to practical problems must be placed at the core of new programs’ (as cited in Rainie & Anderson, 2017, para. 4). These and other deficiencies are often attributed to the millennial generation of worker, now the largest generation in the US workforce (Fry, 2018) and which will soon comprise three-quarters of the global workforce (Catalyst, 2018).

Per J. Twenge et al. (2012), while millennials self-report as high in confidence, the authors warn self-illusions can lead to unrealistic self-assessment and failure to persist. Millennials are also the primary population of online learner (Friedman, 2017). Understanding the PsyCap of the newest generation of young working adult learners (millennials) has potential to lead to new instructional methods that focus curriculum and practice on stimulating growth in the four components (HERO) in a manner embraceable by this generation. Doing so not only enhances learning of the leadership, communication, critical thinking and problem-solving skills necessary in the twenty-firstcentury. It can be conducted in a manner mirroring that of their workplace where their learning is immediately put into action.

Customary andragogical approaches presume that students desire to learn rather than merely to obtain a credential. Constructivist theory has been the basis for much of programme development in online studies. Goertzen and Whitaker (relying upon Hannah & Avolio, 2010) explain developmental readiness as referring ‘to an individual’s motivation to develop and is comprised of factors such as interest and goals, learning goal orientation and developmental efficacy’ Goertzen and Whitaker (2015, p. 783). It behoves programme designers and faculty developers to rethink their underlying assumptions of the developmental readiness in twenty-first-century students. The first step to success for students is to embrace and engage learning. Online courses of the future will need to guide the student towards a desire for the learning itself, being specific as to its purpose and value to them as individuals.

Lack of hope

There may also be a greater need for intervention techniques into student well-being, with which PsyCap assists. Gallagher et al. (2017) found hope ‘the most robust predictor of academic achievement in college after controlling for educational history’ (p. 341). However, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (2014) reported suicide as the second leading cause of death worldwide for ages 15–29 (now 20–34, millennials). Kochanek et al. (2019) identify it as the tenth leading cause of death for all ages in the US. Depression is the single largest contributor to global disability (World Health Organization, 2017). For millennials in the US, drug-related deaths (opioid epidemic) increased 108%, alcohol-induced deaths 69%, and suicides 35% this past decade (Farberman et al., 2019). Twenge et al. (2019) have identified an increase in ‘serious psychological distress, major depression, and suicidal thoughts, and more attempted suicide and took their own lives’ since 2010, affecting younger millennials and upcoming Gen Z (iGen). The authors found the trends ‘weak or non-existent among adults 26 years old and over’ (p. 185). Although past studies in emotional engagement, appreciative inquiry, constructivists’ theories, etc. have been helpful to understand learning, these do not address the lived experiences of adult learners regarding mental readiness to engage in the trust-centred learning relationship key to current learning models (Bartle, 2019; Murray, 2018).

Lack of growth in maturity (resilience, optimism)

Andragogy in adult learning assumes that it is an inquiry-focused, problem and solution-based discovery initiated by the student. Self-directed inquiry results in both deep learning and agentic skills of ownership and accountability such as ‘goal-setting, cooperation, research, learning through trial and error, and self-evaluation’ (Bartle, 2019, para. 15) coupled with the metacognition to apply these in new settings. The high degree of plagiarism and acceptance of cheating amongst US students, however, indicates a student population lacking this ownership and accountability. Twenge and Donnelly (2016) associate this with the consumer mentality and lack of intrinsic value placed upon their education. Missing in the current generation of online students is the realistic self-appraisal necessary in building efficacy and a mastery mindset of PsyCap. Further research into the causes of low PsyCap amongst online students may be helpful to developing realistic solutions for creating a holistic learning experience in which the student matures as a learner and person, having less need for or interest in cheating.

Moving forward

House-Peters et al. (2019) provide us with perspective going forward, suggesting consideration of both the student’s life circumstances as well as their personal agency. The authors suggest we ‘engage with young people as knowledgeable actors whose current and future lifeworlds are worthy of investigation’ (House-Peters et al., 2019, p. 82). As business and education share the same ‘object’ of their efforts – the adult employee/student – the workplace and learning environments are becoming more interrelated and less reciprocal in relationship. This justifies that additional emphasis should be placed in online education upon the utilisation of the theories and models such as PsyCap that explain success in the workplace (Flores-Lucas et al., 2018). The person already studied extensively in organisational behaviour is the same person understudied in his/her online university classroom. The aspects of PsyCap needed to achieve its synergistic outcomes leading to performance excellence incorporate and necessitate skills (critical thinking, problem solving), relational qualities (emotional intelligence, social capital) and attitudes (organisational citizenship, positivity) (Mohanty & Kolhe, 2016). These are the very skills, relational qualities and attitudes that are achieved in a well-designed college programme. Considering that, prior to the pandemic, 15% of all US students were enrolled fully online (Seaman et al., 2018) of which 84% were bachelor students simultaneously employed, and that 65 of 220 programmes researched were business majors (Friedman, 2017), it is easy to see that online university studies have a tremendous impact upon the American workforce. Through the research presented in this paper, it is our conclusion that revamping curricular and instructional approaches to online programmes to include development of student PsyCap has tremendous value for all societal stakeholders. Online university studies would also provide value as a cross-comparison to the existing body of work in PsyCap research applied to organisational behaviour.

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors’ primary study, of which this article is a part, was approved 25 July 2017 by the University of Liverpool Online Research Ethics Committee. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. No funding or financial incentives have been received by authors. There has been no use of animals in the study, and human participants gave informed consent prior to commencement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Debra Black

Prof. Debra BlackBA in Business Administration; MBA; MTh in progress. Forty-four years’ extensive experience in marketing and management including 33 years in international higher education leadership roles. Since 2000, this has included online instruction, course development, faculty training/mentoring at undergraduate and graduate levels ensuring delivery of the program in a manner that maintains university standards while honouring student realities. Affiliations include: Honorary Lecturer for University of Liverpool/Laureate along with several other roles. Associate Professor with the University of Maryland Global College and former Course Chair for Organizational Behavior. Perpetual member Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Dr Charmaine Bissessar is currently a senior lecturer with the University of Guyana where she lectures in education at the masters, post-graduate and undergraduate levels. She has presented at conferences regionally and globally and has written on leadership in education with a focus on gender and online teaching and learning. Her publications add to the limited extant research on anecdotal and empirical data on the Caribbean. She was a recognized teacher with the University of Roehampton London Online and, she is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Dr Mehraz Boolaky earned his MBA and PhD from the University of Mauritius (UOM) and Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from UICT, Mumbai. He was a sean of the FLM at the University of Mauritius. He held visiting/full-time academic positions in Kazakhstan, France, Madagascar, Malaysia, Morocco, etc. He has widely published and presented papers in conferences and workshops. He spent more than 25 years in senior managerial positions after graduation. He was also a professor of marketing at the Asia Pacific Institute of Management in New Delhi. He is a dissertation and consultancy project advisor at the University of Liverpool/Laureate. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and a Certified Professional Engineer (CPE).

Appendix A:

Search Organisation and Results

Upon establishing the eligibility criteria, sources were prioritised and bias reviewed (Byrne, 2016). Sources were categorised as professional networks and repositories (e.g. Academia.edu, Researchgate.net), literature such as government and NGO reports, unpublished (website) articles or institutional information (UMGC), and published/peer-reviewed journals and books (Newman & Gough, 2020). Steps taken include

• Established priority of publication source: (1) listed scholarly journals, (2) peer-reviewed journals long-standing in field of online university education, and (3) authoritative sources of expertise (e.g. government, non-governmental organisations) for issues related to subfactors of student success such as self-management, self-preservation/wellness, etc. This allowed opportunity for possible literature that would establish context to the student experience as it relates to PsyCap components.

• University of Liverpool library database collections were accessed first, repositories second, and a Google search third. Non-academic sources of expertise (grey literature) accessed online via their official websites.

• Search criteria included all available databases across disciplines in the University of Liverpool subscriptions so as to not overlook studies directed to a specific industry. Results were filtered to those written in the English language and available in full text online. Boolean phrasing and ‘find all terms’ methods were used. Results were washed of entries that were duplicate or did not study college populations or that studied this population’s use of technology rather than studying the psychological dynamic of their learning experience. Additionally, some results were not available online despite search filter. Furthermore, articles were not selected if their foundational literature review was over 10 years old or limited, or results presented without meaningful discussion. Aged articles were accepted when providing necessary historical context.

Keywords

In all searches, the phrasing ‘psychological capital’ and ‘PsyCap’ were used interchangeably to fetch results of both. To search for our student population criteria of (1) working adults, (2) online not face-to-face sudents, (3) university not lower grades, and (4) students not teachers or school employees:

*’online university students’ + PsyCap * ‘university student’ + PsyCap * * PsyCap + ‘online education’ * PsyCap + ‘business education’ * PsyCap + ‘adult education’ * ‘online education’ + history * PsyCap + ‘adult training’ *

In addition to historical evolution of online university studies as well as the PsyCap model, contextual information was sought to provide a perspective of the current student generation, external factors affecting the student, and future trends in education. Keywords used to research ancillary topics for context included:

* millennial health * university cheating * ‘online education’ + COVID * ‘online university graduation rates’ * ‘millennials in workforce’ * millennials + ‘university studies’ * andragogy * positive psychology * ‘online student’ + demographic *

The University of Liverpool (UoL) search engine defaults to presenting results by relevance. After review of the first 100 listed, the results were re-sorted by most recent date to ensure information would be relevant to online education today.