Education Commons^™

The Use Of Online Supplemental Materials In College Courses To Improve Retention, Amy Lynn Hennings

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

First-generation college students continue to have lower retention and success rates in colleges and universities, reducing their likelihood of staying above the poverty line. The study tested Bandura and Vygotsky's social cognitive theories of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and student ability to self-pace in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to explore if offering supplemental online materials to traditional class delivery, which can be self-regulated and self-paced, impacted students' success rates in the class and semester-to-semester retention. Using a quasi-experimental method, first-semester college students, in a small private liberal arts college (N = 678); were compared on use of supplemental …