More thoughts on ‘ghost students’
Dr Cathy Stone, Conjoint Associate Professor, University of Newcastle
In their article highlighted in a recent edition of Future Campus, Neil van der Ploeg, Kelly Linden, Ben Hicks and Noelia Roman investigate how undergraduate students are failing. They focus particularly on those who enrol but do not submit any assessments, thereby failing all units of study. Such students have been referred to in a previous study as ‘ghost students’, zero fails or ‘non-participating enrolment’ (NPE) students, who may never seem to appear in the flesh, nor to earn a single mark, even though they may remain enrolled for the full semester or study period. Both studies found that these students account for as many as a quarter to a third of all undergraduate students who fail, with online students being particularly at risk of never submitting assessments or receiving any marks.
I have been particularly interested in research on such ‘ghost’ students ever since working with Open Universities Australia (OUA) a decade and more ago. At the time, my role at OUA was to develop and manage a range of measures designed to increase student persistence and success, and thereby overall student retention. OUA then (and now) offered courses and units delivered online by its educational partners and affiliates. These included enabling and bridging courses, vocational education and training (VET) courses, undergraduate degrees and postgraduate qualifications. Most units of study were open-entry, attracting a high proportion of mature-age and first-in-family students. Even at that time, ghost students – those who never engaged with the unit, who submitted no assessments and received no marks – were a well-known phenomenon both within OUA itself and amongst those at the various Australian universities who coordinated and/or taught OUA units of study within their Schools and Disciplines. Anecdotally, tutors would tell me that a high proportion of their OUA students never even logged into the learning management system (LMS). Such students would be accruing a student fee debt having never engaged with or in their course, without any clear or consistent institutional systems for following them up to find out why, or to try to help them.
Working closely with some wonderful data analysts at OUA, we set about finding out more about these students and what could be done. The internal OUA data clearly showed that ghost students were particularly prevalent amongst those enrolling in their very first unit of study. In contrast, students who had successfully passed at least one unit of study were considerably more likely to re-enrol in further units and submit assessments. Passing that very first unit of study was the strongest predictor of further enrolment and retention than any other factor.
Based on this finding, we decided to implement a pilot program whereby all students beginning their first unit of study with OUA would be personally contacted within the first 3 weeks of their 13-week unit of study by a supportive, friendly phone call from OUA. Contact centre staff received training and mentoring to be ‘student coaches’, operating as the Student Success Hub (SSH). The findings from the pilot showed clearly that this contact significantly increased the pass rate amongst these first-time OUA students. Comparing 500 students who received a phone call from a student coach with 500 students who did not, we found that:
the unit withdrawal rate (before census date) halved;
the proportion of students passing their first unit increased by 18%; and
student retention increased by 11% (measured by enrolment in a new unit within two study periods).
It was clear to us that by reaching out to online students, they became ‘visible’. Examples of student feedback recorded by the student coaches included simple messages of thanks such as,
Thank you for your call. It has made it easier to continue knowing there is so much help about,
as well as more detailed feedback such as,
I have just looked at the research link you sent and there are some things I have taken note of and will start using - thank you so much. I was at first a bit worried about being "alone" at home doing my degree, but there is so much help and support it's just fantastic to allow a single mum like myself to be able to do such a degree - thank you!
While it is some time ago now since I was directly involved in such work, I could not help but reflect on this in relation to ‘ghost students’ and other recent work that emphasises the value of outreach interventions to new students in the first few weeks following enrolment. Indeed, the new Support for Students Guidelines would now seem to mandate such proactive approaches.
It is clear that if universities are seriously wanting to reduce failure rates and increase student retention and success, they must increase their efforts in reaching out to new students with a personal, welcoming and helpful approach. Through such contact, students who might otherwise linger in the shadows or disappear altogether, can begin to feel more confident about taking the plunge and truly engaging with their studies.
Dr Cathy Stone is a Conjoint Associate Professor, University of Newcastle and 2016 Equity Fellow, National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE, now the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success), Curtin University, Australia.