Factors Affecting Students' Completion: A Study of an Online Master's Program

Abstract

While there are many studies on student persistence in undergraduate programs offered in traditional classroom settings, there is a lack of empirical research investigating the factors affecting the completion of online advanced degree programs. In order to address such research need, this study collects student data from an online GIS Master's program and employs logistic regression to assess a set of predictors in predicting whether or not a student completed the program. Instead of demographic and entry-level characteristics, students' academic performance in the present program such as current GPA, credits taken, and stop-out years is found to have significant predictive power of students' completion of the online Master's program.