Students with disabilities are a segment of online learners who struggle to complete and pass online courses. Researchers have suggested increasing student self-regulation skills would lead to more desirable completion outcomes. This study uncovered strategies enacted by teachers to help students with disabilities engage in self-regulation during online coursework.
Online learning is education in which instruction and content are delivered primarily over the Internet. (Watson & Kalmon, 2005). K-12 fully online and blended virtual school enrollments have grown dramatically in the past 15 years (Watson, Pape, Murin, Gemin, & Vashaw, 2014). However, online course attrition tends to exceed face-to-face settings (de la Varre, et. al, 2014). For example, Freidhoff (2015) reported that during the 2013-14 academic year students completed or passed only 57% of their online courses, in contrast with 71% of their face-to-face courses.
Another concern is that some states, such as Florida, require students to take online courses as part of the state’s graduation requirements (Florida Department of Education, 2014). This means that students need to complete online courses in order to have other life opportunities. Further, online enrollments in K-12 courses are used for various reasons, including credit recovery, extending the school year, offering courses that would not normally be available in a school or district, reducing scheduling conflicts, solving staffing shortage concerns, and offering more advanced placement classes. The reasons behind the increase in online course enrollments suggest that these courses will be filled with students who have a range of learning dispositions and skills, and they will all need support to learn the content.
Students with disabilities represent increasing numbers of students in educational settings that are non-traditional, including online learning (Moore & Kearsley, 2011). Students with disabilities struggle even more to complete and pass their online courses (Ahn, 2011). For instance, Author (2014) found that having a disability identification was the only demographic characteristic of nine that were tested that predicted a low course grade in a large virtual school program in the midwest.
In addressing attrition, some researchers have suggested increasing student self-regulation and metacognitive skills would lead to more desirable completion outcomes (Barbour & Mulcahy, 2004; Cavanaugh, 2007; Freidhoff, 2015). However, self-regulation is regarded as an under-researched area in K12 online learning, especially as it pertains specifically diverse learners, including students with disabilities (Rice, 2006). The purpose of this study was to uncover strategies enacted by teachers of students with disabilities that promoted self-regulation in online coursework.
Perspectives on Self-Regulation
Several models of self-regulation for learning have emerged in research. The most well-known come from Zimmerman (1998). Zimmerman’s framework is a cycle consisting of three phases. Each phase in this cycle focuses on a different skill: Forethought, Performance, and Self-Reflection. This model of self-regulation asserts that successful performance of a particular skill during each phase leads the learner to the next phase, ultimately to return to the first phase. Students excelling at self-regulated learning will do so because they have mastered subskills for each phase and make adjustments to improve both learning depth and task completion.
Although there is consensus that self-regulation can and should be taught, research on teacher preparation to help students with and without disabilities become more self-regulated learners is scarce (Roeser, Skinner, Beers, & Jennings, 2012). One goal of this study was to illustrate what a group of teachers did to promote student self-regulation for students with disabilities in online schools.
Methods
Four content teachers with special education certification in State Virtual School participated in this case study (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2011). In a case study, multiple strategies are engaged in by a researcher or a team of researchers to gather as much information as possible about the phenomenon under study. These participants were assigned to the same special education mentors. All the teachers had students with disabilities in their classes.
Data sources for this study included records of interactions with parents, students, and teachers around accommodations for students with disabilities including implementation of their Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs), and individual interviews. Participant interaction records with parents, students, and colleagues were provided by the participating school. Data about individual student performance or information from IEPs that could link directly to individual students were not collected. Data about types of disabilities students have who attended the school or information about students that served as reasons for contact with teachers or administrators were collected. Thus, interviews with teachers were triangulated (Mathison, 1988) against interviews with special education administrators (and vice versa) as well as against electronic logs required by the school that both teachers and administrators to update regularly.
Another data source included individual phone interviews with four teachers and their special education mentors. Interviews were conducted once per week for 6 weeks during the study period which lasted between 30 minutes and one hour. Each interview was recorded and transcribed. Interview data was coded using open and axial coding germane to grounded theory procedures commonly adopted into qualitative research (Charmaz, 2006). Next, data underwent an additional round of analysis where themes as tensions emerged. After that, researchers engaged in negative case analysis techniques (Marshall & Rossman, 2011) to search for contradictory evidence for themes and to review and develop deeper understandings.
Findings
We found that teachers wanted and intended to help students self-regulate, but were largely unsuccessful. While teachers in this study had access to much data about student progress, their most meaningful data point for assessment was completion and performance on assignments.
They have to put in effort on their own first. And a lot of times -- like this one girl was like, “Miss, I want you to do this assignment with me. I just have no idea what it's asking.” I don't know, I don't know. I have to try it on your own, submit me what you can. She submitted it to me. She had like two or three minor errors.
All was well while students submitted work of a certain quality. Problems came when students fell behind in the amount of work they complete. When this happened, teachers had only a limited amount of strategies to get them back on track. These strategies were (1) contacting students to tell them to work (2) contacting parents to ask them to tell students to work (3) revisiting pacing guides for the course (4) recommending resources or small group sessions or (5) threatening to drop students from courses.
Most often used strategies were limited in utility for fostering self-regulation and true independence as learners, even though that was the thing teachers said they desired. Indeed, as instructors, they were masters of self-regulation.
They need to be engaging the curriculum in order to retain it. So, that’s been my big thing, and that's going to be my main focus. I want to make sure I have no reds, I want to make sure these kids are constantly working and I’ve been activating these students this week.
This teacher communicates clearly that when her dashboard signals “red” that stirs something in her and she springs into action to restore the student’s pace. She used “red” to monitor her performance at getting students to work. Another teacher elaborated about maintaining course pace with students.
I tell them, “Never let seven days go by without working.” As long as they’re working every week and submitting assignments, that’s really our only requirement. We like them to stay on pace, we have pace charts there for them to use--whatever works for them, they can even create their own.
Pace guides were supposed to be self-regulating, but students largely did not respond to them.
Teachers were well aware of the consequences of failing a class or not graduating, more so than the students. The realization of what a disaster failing the course would be lead to the use of strategies with limited effectiveness rather than more time consuming self-regulatory instruction.
I had that discussion with him last Wednesday. I gave him a task for the evening and then followed up at 8pm. later. He was very, very upset with me, for asking him to have a time constraint to have his work in that day. But it was because he was so far behind. So I was trying to really get something out of him, so I could evaluate it and see where to go from there.
Access to technology had only been leveraged to contact the students across distance and to sound alarms when work was uncompleted; it was not being used to optimize self-regulation.
Discussion
The findings of this study illustrate how teachers managed challenges of supporting students with disabilities in completing online coursework. The expectation that online students will demonstrate learning by completing assignments and the expectation of online teachers to ensure learning are heavy and difficult for both parties.
Teachers had limited access to meaningful artifacts of progress which was exacerbated with students are unable to self-regulate. It seemed that they might benefit from preparation to use a wider variety of the data which is being collected in their schools. Further, transitioning from brick and mortar environments undoubtedly shapes how expectations for teaching and learning were met for both teachers and students as they moved from daily interactions with teachers ones that occurred less often.