Running head: RESEARCH PROSPECTUS 1

Research Prospectus

Dayna E. Falzone, Roger A. Gray, Latina M. Puder, David A. Rutledge, Sharee L. Verar

Liberty University
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Abstract

Over the past several years, distance education has seen a sharp increase in enrollments

among K-12 students. The purpose of this research prospectus is to examine the retention rates

of rising distant education enrollments compared to traditional brick and mortar student

enrollments among students in the state of Florida. Data will be gathered from statistical data

reported on Floridas department of education web site as well as through public records

requests. In order to compare the data, ordinary least squares regression analysis (OLS) will be

performed on all data sets along with colinear diagnostics in order to ensure that all results are

within valid limits. A comparative analysis will be performed on the resulting data in order to

identify patterns in the variances and trends in the differences between data subsets.

Keywords: K-12 online, graduation rates, retention, Florida, K-12 distance education
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Research Prospectus

Background / Brief Review of the Literature

K-12online education is an educational option for parents who are seeking a more

flexible learning environment for their students. Student enrollment in online learning has

quickly increased by eighty percent over the last several years (Connections Academy,

2017). Are students graduating at a rate equal to non-online schools? With the increasing

demands placed on teachers in traditional classroom, students seeking more personalized

learning are turning to online education. Connections Academy (2017) states that sixty percent

of their students come from a public school background. This means that public schools are not

meeting the needs of these students. However, does this mean that online schools are meeting

the needs of these students? Students can become disengaged from online learning just as they

can in traditional classrooms. There are contributing factors in both classroom settings that

cause students to not be active participants in their education. Student expectations can lead to

one potential cause called the isolation effect (Hawkins, Graham, Sudweeks, & Barbour, 2013).

Students can easily feel lonely when quick responses from fellow classmates and instructors are

lacking. The expectation that online learning will have the same student interactions that face-

to-face instruction has can set students up for disappointment (Hawkins et al., 2013). The only

way to truly know why students are discontinuing their online courses is to examine more

closely the factors that are affecting their decision making.

Problem Statement

An area that does not have much research is retention rates within K-12 online

schools. There is difficulty in obtaining retention rates from K-12 online schools due the private

nature of the information. Any rates that are currently available are from state schools that are
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required to release statistics on their online schools. For the purpose of this study, Florida

retention rates will be examined as they publicly release their data (Florida Department of

Education, 2017). Obtaining the retention rates from privately funded online schools would

require authorization from board members and financial contributors to the school. Any

variability in this study would be due to the online schools making improvements in the design

and implementation of their course and instruction.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study is to examine the retention rates of students in online schools to

see if they are different than the rates for non-online schools. If they are lower, it is then

important to investigate further to discover why are they choosing to drop out of their online

schools. Are there any contributing factors that could be improved upon to encourage students to

stick with their online learning program? In order to fix a rising problem in K-12 online schools,

we must examine the contributing factors that lead to students giving up on their education.

Significance of the Study

The significance of this study is to review the evolution of K-12 online education and

discuss aspects pertaining to retention rates in the online environments. It seems there is a 10 to

20% higher failed retention rate among online learners. There are various reasons for this to

occur, some include students leaving, whether it be because of difficult classes or diverse

backgrounds that arent being met in the online environment. Observation and research of what

causes students to be retained can assist in coming up with some ideas that will counteract the

increase in failing and retention. Creating orientations and requiring students to attend as well as

encouraging collaborative interaction may lower the instances of students dropping out. Faculty

training and professional development increases teacher preparation that will enhance the
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learning experience of online learners making them more comfortable and motivated to strive for

success. Comparing data gathered about students with tools included in online situations as

opposed to those in traditional classrooms, it is hopeful that advances can be made to strengthen

continuation and graduation rates in the online situations.

Research Question

The research question for this study: Is there a significant difference in retention rate in

the state of Florida based on school type and student demographic in K-12 students (online vs.

non-online)?

Research Hypothesis

There is no difference in retention rates among on-line K-12 students compared to non-

online students in the state of Florida, grouped by race/ethnicity and country.

Identification of Variables

The retention rates in Florida counties will be studied by identifying a cohort of students

as a group of students on the same schedule to graduate in an online environment and a

traditional offline environment. The requirements for receiving a standard diploma varies from

state to state so the study will focus on the standards for Florida. Students will be grouped by

race/ethnicity and state counties and comparisons will be made looking at retention rates and

graduation rates of students enrolled in online learning environments as opposed to those in

traditional brick and mortar classrooms. Course persistence will be the variable that changes

based on online and offline courses.

Methodology

The state of Florida provides a special research opportunity as one of the states that is

leading in online learning (National Board of State Boards of Education, 2012). The state
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requires reporting by all schools, including outside online education vendors, through their

education performance accountability system (Borthwick, 2015). Under the Digital Learning

Now Act of 2011 all districts are required to offer online learning (Archambault, 2014). This

provides accessibility to online programs for all students throughout the state and an additional

depth of data for research purposes. Due to the combination of these factors, the state of Florida

has extensive data available that will be accessed and utilized through the Florida State

Department of Education website combined with public records requests.

Research Design

This study is designed as a comparative analysis that will compare the graduation rate of

students in online school programs to those in non-online school programs throughout the state

of Florida. A regression analysis of information gathered from public state data on annual

graduation rates from the Florida State Department of Education web site combined with data

gathered from public records requests will be utilized. An ordinary least squares (OLS)

regression model will be used to compare the annual graduation rates of all online schools and all

non-online schools within the state of Florida. This is an appropriate method of analysis and

comparison due to the nature of the two data sets being compared using matching variable on the

same coordinate plane (Carpenter, 2015). To confirm that results are within acceptable limits,

colinear diagnostics will be performed. To further investigate patterns within the data, subsets

based upon gender, race, socioeconomic grouping, and community size will be analyzed using

these same methods.

Participants / Sampling

Due to the requirements of Floridas Digital Learning Now Act of 2011 for all districts to

offer online learning (Archambault, 2014), and reporting by all schools, including outside online
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education vendors, through their education performance accountability system (Borthwick,

2015) the population for this study will be all online and non-online schools within the state of

Florida. With the both online and non-online school opportunities available equally throughout

the state, the sample population can include all districts and schools without bias. Data samples

will be gathered from the graduation, retention, and dropout data publicly available through the

state of Floridas department of education web site and supplemented as needed through public

records requests, especially if individual student data is deemed necessary. Data subsets based

upon gender, race, socioeconomic grouping, and community size will be gathered through these

same sources in order to investigate differences as compared to the state data as a whole.

Setting

For the purpose of this study, all research data has been gathered from participating

accredited online and traditional schools specifically catering to K-12 education in the state of

Florida. Many of the online school programs have been established through public school

districts and are tuition free (Participating Schools, 2017). The data will be collected from all

Floridas public school records on graduation, retention, and dropout rates. All public schools

are required to offer online courses by Floridas Digital Learning Now Act of 2011

(Archambault, 2014). Students will be grouped by race/ethnicity and state county. Subsequent

grouping methods include gender, race, socioeconomic, status and community size.

The data will be used to group student participants into groups for collinear

diagnostics. The analysis looks at all students enrolled in 8 or 16 week courses. All students

will earn three credit hours for the completion of the courses toward their degree completion

program. Online courses are both asynchronous and synchronous and the traditional courses are

synchronous. Students in online courses will work from central management systems not limited
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to Blackboard, Desire to Learn or Google Classroom. Retention rates are calculated based on

seat time; the students must complete the full course with a passing grade (Lynch, 2017).

Instrumentation

For the purpose of this research, computers will be used to gather the publicly released

data from the Florida Department of Education at the end of the 2018 school year. This is a

reliable data collection tool because the Florida Department of Education (2017) archives data

publications, reports and retention rates from each Florida county using statistical formats

including graphs, tables, maps and custom reports based on interests in education-related data.

Procedures / Data Collection

Five researchers will execute the research by gathering the public data on the Florida

Department of Education website as data becomes available at the end of the 2018 school

year. The researchers will be trained to use the same method of data analysis to accurately

collect and group students by race/ethnicity and state counties. Students do not need to be

notified because the data is publically made available. The gathered data will be grouped,

graphed and charted for the purpose of comparison to better understand how retention rates differ

between online students and traditional brick and mortar students.

Data Analysis

Data Analysis will be based on the (OLS) regression model that compares the annual

graduation rates of all online schools and all non-online schools within the state of Florida. The

research question will be addressed using a regression model that incorporates a model for

students dependent data. The data will be based on graduation rates, school type, gender,

learning status, IEP status, grade level, Hispanic, Black, White, Native American, Asian. As with

the student-level data, each school-level, socioeconomic grouping, and community size
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dependent variable will be analyzed with a separate model. This will ensure a view of the data

that will break down by school districts in the state for their own review. Finally, colinearity

diagnostics will be run for each regression analysis. Descriptive statistics will also be used to

analyze the data giving a picture of what the actual data is giving from the models used.

Assumptions and Limitations

This research makes for a great continuum of a possible line of research that should

happen. It will give results based on the educational system of Florida. Analysis of the on-line

and non-online educational system setup will yield a supportive amount about a clear majority of

students populations and school district data on online and non-online education graduation

outcomes. There will be a need to at least investigate the educational delivery models used by

educators answering what are the input values added to both educational delivery systems. The

possible questions that remain is to what extents is the graduation rate a product of educational

delivery types such as found in online and non-online learning models. One consideration that

must be considered is the possible bias that could occur as the fact that some groups of

ethnicities was not all included in the study. Making sure the research is inclusive to all groups,

will ensure that result is reflective of all populations. A focus of research should be made on the

efforts of determining if teaching related activity could be a possible impactor of students

graduation success. One variable that must be considered is that online and non-online

educational activity does not have the same history background. Also, given the fact that online

learning is in the early developmental stages as research based educational strategies are being

conceived. This research is an effort to build on previous studies that have been done thus

far. With the rapid increase in technological developments, online learning efforts and delivery

products will continue to improve the online learning models as compared to non-online learning
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activity. In many states that utilize online learning, it is important to fully account for their

justification in the educational process as accountability in terms of graduation rates is

considered and all educational stakeholders are made accountable for student graduation success

rates.
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References

Archambault, L., DeBruler, K., & Freidhoff, J. (2014). K-12 online and blended teacher

licensure: Striking a balance between policy and preparedness. Journal of Technology

and Teacher Education, 22(1), 83-106. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2ujHUB8

Borthwick, A., Hansen, R., & Spinella, G. (2015, February 24). Online learning landscape

becoming more regulated. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?

articleid=318&category=Lead-the-way&article=

Carpenter, D., Kafer, K., Reeser, K., & Shafer, S. (2015). Evaluating the performance of online

K-12 schools. International Journal on E-Learning, 14(4), 423-441. Chesapeake, VA:

Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved from

http://bit.ly/2vH6Jqa

Connections Academy (2017). Growth of k-12 online learning infographic. Retrieved from:

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/news/growth-of-k-12-online-education-infographic

Florida Department of Education (2017). Accountability and reporting. Retrieved from:

http://www.fldoe.org/accountability/accountability-reporting/

Hawkins, A., Graham, C. R., Sudweeks, R. R., & Barbour, M. K. (2013). Academic

performance, course completion rates, and student perception of the quality and

frequency of interaction in a virtual high school.Distance Education,34(1), 64-83.

doi:10.1080/01587919.2013.770430

Lynch, M. (2017, August 03). Pass or Fail: Test-Based Retention Practices and Education

Standards. Retrieved from http://www.theedadvocate.org/pass-fail-test-based retention-

practices-education-standards/
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National Association of State Boards of Education. (2012). Born in another time Ensuring

educational technology meets the needs of students today and tomorrow. Retrieved

from http://www.nasbe.org/wp-content/uploads/Born-in-Another-Time-NASBE-full-

report.pdf

Participating Schools. (2017). Retrieved August 19, 2017, from

http://www.k12.com/participating-schools.html?state=florida