Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education

Advisor

Carole Trueman

Committee Member

Susanne Flannelly

Keywords

academic persistence, credit retrieval, credits, dropout prevention, online courses

Abstract

The problem addressed in this study was that the Compass Learning Odyssey program, a self-paced online intervention, was being utilized to allow middle school students at the target school to recover course credits in the core subjects of language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies, but its effectiveness had not been studied. The Compass Learning Odyssey program provided remediation opportunities for students who had failed one or more academic core courses and allowed for credit retrieval, course completion and grade promotion. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the implementation of summer credit retrieval online program on the overall retrieval of credits by all Grade-8 student participants and student participants in subgroups of gender and ethnic groups. The credit retrieval program had been in effect in the school since the 2006-2007 school year, but its effectiveness had not been studied. The researcher used de-identified retrospective data to answer the research questions. One-way analysis of variance and t tests were conducted to determine for each year and overall for the 4 years if there was a statistically significant difference in the impact of the implementation of the summer credit retrieval online program on (a) the overall retrieval of credits by Grade-8 students in the summer program, (b) the quality points earned by gender and ethnic subgroups, (c) the students retrieving core credits, and (d) the core courses retrieved by gender and ethnic groups.The results of the study showed that all students passed the quarter modules with at least a grade of D, with 75% of students making average progress with a grade of C. There was not a statistically significant difference between subjects studied. Ninety-three percent of the students participating in the summer credit retrieval program were able to recover enough core credits to be promoted. Suggestions for program improvements and recommendations for future research are included.

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