基础课程学生数量衰减研究

A study of student attrition in foundation courses

本文试图通过对香港公开大学两门数学基础课程的评估,探寻影响学生数量表减的因素,并依据有用的资料鉴定学生退学的原因.研究结果表明,70%的学生的退学出现在其入学的前半阶段,且与完成最初的指导作业和不能参加期末考试密切相关.在远程开放学习中,导致学生退学的两大因素是学生的受教育背景及其经验的缺乏.这一发现在随后进行的对包括表现积极的学生和退学学生在内的问卷调查中被最终证实.此外,学生信心不坚定,学生的辅导体制无效,课程内容不合理以及诸如学生学习与工作相冲突等个人问题也是导致产生较高数量衰减的因素.为解决这些问题,我们提出了包括开发学生的预备课件,提高学生辅导体制的效力以及修订课程内容等策略.

The Open University of Hong Kong adopts an open entry policy. A consequence of this practice is a Background educational level and lack of experience in distance and open learning were two major causes of student dropout. This initial finding wvery high non-examination attendance rate (often > 35%) for most of its entry (foundation) courses. As part of its quality assurance practice, the University conducts regular reviews and studies on student per-formance as well as various aspects of its student support service. This paper reports on a study aimed at evaluating the factors which contribute to student attrition in two mathematics foundation courses. Charac-teristics of students who dropped out were identified based on available records. The results showed that 70% of dropouts occurred during the first half of presentation and non-submission of the first tutormarked assignment was highly correlated with non-attendance at the final examination.as subsequently confirmed in a followup questionnaire sur-vey conducted on the dropout cases as well as active students. In addition, insufficient student commit-ment, ineffective student support system, inappropriate course materials and personal problems such as conflict between study and work also contributed to the high attrition. Various strategies including the de-velopment of a student preparatory package, the enhancement of the quality of the student support system as well as the revision of course materials are proposed to address the problem.