Minority Student Access in the Online Environment

Abstract


 
 
 Using registration and transcript data, the authors explored differences in online course enrollment across different student groups. This study revealed that minority students do not enroll in online courses to the same extent as their White student peers, but the effect size for the difference in participation rates was small. However, the actual difference between minority students online vs. face-to-face enrollment was five percentage points, a difference equivalent to about 150 minority students per year, given the College’s current enrollment rates, so the impact of this small difference is not insignificant. An even greater issue is that Black and Hispanic students, regardless of the course delivery medium, continue to have lower G.P.A. s than their White and Asian/Pacific Islander (PI) student peers. This finding reinforces prior research that suggests Black and Hispanic student groups need additional support in order to be successful in college, and that greater recruitment efforts for online courses are needed for all minority groups.