Major project to tackle dropout rates for online courses

Researchers from The University of Western Australia have received a major funding boost to develop a project that will significantly improve the success of online education by reducing the number of students who drop out of online courses.

The project, led by Dr Jianxin Li from UWA’s Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, was awarded $480,000 in funding over three years from the Australian Research Council.

Dr Li’s team, which includes collaborators from Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology and RMIT University, and partner organisation Australian Education and Migration Services, will design algorithms to look at pattern recognition in learning activities, learning performance assessment and personalised study plan recommendations.

“Our primary goal will be to develop an analytics system to support personalised learning based on a student’s past performance and their current risk of failure in different types of learning activities,” Dr Li said.

“The system would continuously examine a student’s online learning activities and evaluate their learning outcomes in real time.

“These evaluations, supported by the historical data of many other students, could then be used to predict the likelihood of success or the risk of academic failure in the early stages of learning.

“Students would then be provided with a personalised study plan to help improve their learning outcomes.”

UWA Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research), Professor Robyn Owens, said the success of the project would significantly enhance the success of online education.

“Dropout rates for online courses around the world are significant, with some completion rates as low as two per cent which is a real concern,” Professor Owens said.

“The success of this project would not only help to retain students in online courses, it would save time and money for users around the world.”

The project is expected to be completed by June 2022.

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