Recently, the Babson Survey Research Group and Pearson released the results of a survey about online learning. The report was based on responses from over 2,800 academic leaders and found that over 7.1 million higher ed students are learning online.
The report quantified many things that those involved in education already knew (or at least, suspected). Participation in online learning is increasing. Learning outcomes are largely positive. Interestingly, what this study does show is something that I hadn’t quite expected – that many of the numbers that had been continually rising over the past years were starting to show a slight decline. For example, the proportion of chief academic leaders that say online learning is critical to their long-term strategy dropped from 69.1 percent to 65.9 percent. Many believe that MOOCs are not a sustainable form of online learning for higher education institutions to pursue.
