Academic Synthesis: Online Education Essay Sample

Rob Jenkins discusses the effects of online education in society and acknowledges the fact that there is a high rate of students failure in online education. In his book, Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online Rob Jenkins compares online education and the education that is carried out in the face-to-face classrooms. In the book, Jenkins compares the success rate of online education that rates at 50 percent with the face-to-face classroom type of education that has a success rate of between 70 and 75 percent. The thoughts, as laid out by Jenkins on the issue of online education, contrasts with the views of Kuo and Xu on the same topic. According to Jenkins, the high rate of failure in online education is due to the various limitations in this kind of education and one of them is that is does not provide an opportunity for the students to interact personally with the professors and this affects the rate of understanding of the students. Jenkins appreciates the advantages of the students being in the same room with their professors in the process of teaching.

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Secondly, Jenkins proves that online education does not provide the dynamics and experiences associated with the brick-and-mortar classroom education and this affects the ability of the students taking online studies to acquire social and interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills are very crucial in the life of a student as they help the students to acquire requisite skills. In this manner Jenkins proves that lack of development of the relevant skills leads to poor performance in online education. Jenkins also states that the second reason behind poor success in online education is because the system does not create a platform for the tutors to follow up on the progress of the students and this makes it challenging to monitor the progress of the students and introduce corrective measures where necessary. In conclusion, Jenkins shows the impact of online education in instilling discipline on the students. In this manner, the author shows that online platforms do not create avenues where the tutors can ensure that their students are disciplined and that they practice what they have been taught. Jenkins blames the laxity of the students in applying course content during exams to the low level of discipline in the online education.

Kuo (2013) on the other hand develops a parallel thought to Jenkinss on high failure rates in online education and posits that one of the major causes of high failure rate in online education is the incompetence of the tutors and the irrelevance of the courses. Kuo submits that the tutors that carry out online education do not understand the challenges of their students because they only engage though an online interface. According to Kuo, the tutors need to understand and appreciate the dynamics of online education and help in tackling the challenges that the students face in the online education. This proves that there is poor training of the faculty members on the skills they need to improve the quality of online education. It is factual that technological development is an ever-growing process, therefore, the administrators of the institutions that offer online education need to acquire the right skills that can help them to improve on the process of dissemination of knowledge to the students.

Another thought on the genesis of the poor performance of online students according to Kuo is the defective online learning system. In this line, Kuo presents that most of the online systems do not have quality control checks and the biometric components to help in ascertaining the students that take part in online education. Additionally, the systems of online education also do not comprehensively present the various particulars of education such as the education calendar, course materials, grade book, online quizzes and discussion boards. This makes it difficult for the faculty to communicate with the students that take part in online education. Lack of the necessary educational amenities in the online systems affects the quality of education offered thereof and this is to blame for the poor performance of the students. The increase in the putting up of online institutions and lack of quality checks when opening up the institutions make the online education less credible as there is limited interest in the resources required by the students to improve on their learning.

Another renowned author, Xu (2013), also adds on the thoughts of Jenkins and Kuo as he examines the reasons behind the poor performance of students in online education. This is because online courses do not mentor the students on the complexities of the course and how they can deal with the challenges. The institutions do not make the students understand what they are getting into when they begin the course. This is due to the problem of lack or inability of the learning institutions to infuse technology into the basic learning processes. Additionally, Xu also proves that lack of control by the governments to regulate the process of knowledge dissemination in online platforms justify the poor performance in online education. The author proves that governments encourage application of technology in promoting education without putting forth adequate quality control checks to ensure that online education meet the required education standards.

The thoughts that Xu, (2013), has relates with those of Kuo in that lack of proper control measure is to blame for the poor education standards of online platforms and this is the cause of the poor performance of students undertaking online courses. Governments need to curb the mushrooming of online institutions that do not have the right facilities to carry out educational activities. From the analysis of the perception of the authors regarding performance of students taking online courses, it is factual that there should be the improvement of the interaction between the students taking online education and the tutors. In this case, there should be a review of the online education systems to introduce avenues through which the tutors and the students bond occasionally to enhance understanding of the students. This would provide an opportunity for the students to share their challenges in the online education systems and find ways of tackling the problems of poor performance in the online systems.

Additionally, there should also be standardization of online education and ascertain that it meets the education standards of the ISO certified learning institutions. In order to ensure standardization of online education, there should be expansion of the curriculum to introduce the relevant components in the course to help the students acquire broad information without limiting to the profession-based type of education. Combination of the views of Jenkins, Kuo and Xu would help in the development of the online education and improve the effectiveness of the online learning facilities by providing quality education across the generations.

Works Cited

Jenkins, Rob. "Why are so many students still failing online." The Chronicle of Higher Education 22 (2011).

Kuo, Yu-Chun, et al. "A predictive study of student satisfaction in online education programs." The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 14.1 (2013): 16-39.

Xu, Di, and Shanna Smith Jaggars. "Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas. CCRC Working Paper No. 54." Community College Research Center, Columbia University (2013).