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Skills for succeeding in online graduate studies.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

For online graduate learners, knowledge of practical skills that promote successful help seeking that go beyond simply suggesting that students ask their instructor for further direction, are invaluable. Skills for succeeding in online graduate health studies shaped from a student's perspective and data collected from an already published study are identified. The skills essential for succeeding in online graduate studies are enlisting help from family, friends and co-workers, recruiting others to proof read assignments, and creating discussion groups outside of the online setting.

Introduction

Balancing the demands of full time employment, raising a family, and completing graduate studies online creates extraordinary challenges for health care professionals (Bocchi, Eastman, & Swift, 2004). Few adult learners feel confident in reaching out for help within "normal" learning environments. Previous attempts to seek help may have resulted in peer and instructor perceptions of incompetence, negative instructor feedback, and feelings of self-doubt. Compounding the often-isolating experiences of learning online, students are commonly confused in the help seeking process. Institutional guidance for online graduate students may be limited to directions requiring them to seek help only from their instructors. Research related to how online graduate students can best seek help and the skills they need to use that help to succeed is limited, making further study essential. In this paper, three critical skills for succeeding in online graduate study programs are presented. These three skills are: (1) enlist help from family, friends, and co-workers, (2) submit assignments for proofreading, and (3) create discussion groups.

These skills were originally identified from data collected in a project reported elsewhere (Melrose, Shapiro, LaVallie, 2005 in press). The project was framed from a constructivist theoretical perspective (Peters, 2000) and a naturalistic action research design (Corey, 1949; Kemmis, 1990; Altrichter, Posch & Somekh, 1993; Stringer & Genat, 2004). Data sources included fifteen responses from one question on a program satisfaction questionnaire, two focus groups of five participants and ten audio tape-recorded transcribed interviews with graduates who attended Convocation ceremonies at the Athabasca University campus in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada in June 2003 and June 2004. The researchers analyzed content from these data sources first independently and then collaboratively. The transcripts were thoroughly read and re-read and a systematic process of content analysis was developed (Loiselle et al, 2004) to create the categorization and coding scheme that led to the themes. The research approach was conceptualized from tools examining help-seeking within learning that were tested in an earlier project (Shapiro et al, 2003). Trustworthiness was established through ongoing interaction and member checking with participants to ensure authenticity. Full ethical approval was granted from the Athabasca University Ethics Committee.

The following question was included on the graduate satisfaction questionnaire and provided the structure for discussion in both the focus groups and the individual audiotape recorded transcribed interviews:

Seeking help with learning can be difficult for online students at the graduate level. Please describe an incident when, even though you read the study guide, that you did not understand all the instructions and did not know what to do. As the course progressed, and other students began to work--what did you do? What kind of help...

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