Comparing dropouts and persistence in e-learning courses
A bibliographic record and short editorial reading note for a paper included in the historical EDUCATE collection.
Original publication authors
Yair Levy
What this paper examines
Levy investigates differences between students who complete e-learning courses and those who leave. The study examines satisfaction and academic locus of control, and reports an association between lower satisfaction and non-completion in the courses studied. It also discusses how dropout is defined. The findings belong to that research setting and should not be treated as a universal causal explanation of every withdrawal.
A question to take into course design
How is withdrawal defined in your programme, and how are students’ experiences measured before they leave?
The full paper remains a third-party publication. This page preserves its identity and provides a new editorial reading note; it does not attribute the note to the original researchers or change the paper’s publication date.
Why it belongs in the water programme archive
EDUCATE combined water resources and environmental management with distance delivery. The original reading collection included research about online teaching, course design and learner support.
Levy examines satisfaction, persistence and academic locus of control. Association with reported satisfaction is not evidence that changing one interface feature causes every learner to complete.
New explanation and worked examples by the editorial team.
Original explanatory diagram · Water MSC editorial. Declare statuses → Fix the denominator and date → Separate active from withdrawn.
The diagram in words: Declare statuses → Fix the denominator and date → Separate active from withdrawn.
Define each status before counting
Write separate definitions for enrolled, started, withdrawn, completed and still active. Fix the observation window and the denominator. A learner who has not started is different from one who formally withdraws; an unfinished course is not necessarily a dropout while its deadline is still open.
A fictional cohort you can audit
A training cohort begins with 20 enrolled learners. At a fixed review date 12 have completed, 3 have withdrawn and 5 remain active. Completion among the enrolled is 12/20 = 60%. Treating all eight non-completers as withdrawn would create a false withdrawal count. Keep statuses mutually clear and update only when new evidence warrants it.
Pair the count with a support question
Look at anonymised reasons or barriers when legitimately available. Missing reasons stay unknown. Compare cohorts only if their definitions, course duration and observation windows match. Do not use this small invented count to estimate the EDUCATE programme’s performance.
Worked record
Field
Example or check
Enrolled
20, invented
Completed
12 = 60% of enrolled
Other status
3 withdrawn; 5 still active
Document evidence
Comparing dropouts and persistence in e-learning courses · 20 pages.
