Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Invisible Student

The student body on the TWU campus has always been different than most universities around. We are primary female, have an older than average student and are known as a commuter school. But, ever since we have incorporated online learning through our Distance Education department we have an invisible student body. I found it very interesting when we received the statistics of just who was attending our online courses.
This spring 2008 there were 276 unique classes offered; with a total 5,486 students enrolled at TWU. Of these online students 2,791 were totally online students never spending any time on our campuses. Who are these students? Out of 746 students who responded to an Online Learners Survey here are a few statistics:
• 92.49% were female
• 89% were between 25-54
• 72% taking graduate/professional courses
• 80.91 were employed full-time
• 45.15% were married with children
• 59.51% are taking 4-9 credit hours
• 19.51% have no previous online experience

So according to the survey we have a pretty consistent consensus of the on campus students except the high rate of online students having children.
So I hope that we can give the online student the same experience the on campus student gets from our unique campus and all that it offers.

No comments:

Post a Comment