John F Cadwell

Composition II

Shari McGriff

November 13, 2018

Annotated Bibliography

Annotation 1

Bawa, Papia. “Retention in Online Courses.” SAGE Open, vol. 6, no. 1, 2016,
doi:10.1177/2158244015621777.

This journal evaluates the causes of lower retention rates in online courses. The author not only
examines the causes but also discusses solutions so that retention rates can be raised in the
future. The journal also provides a foundation for additional research in the future.

The Journal is well written and contains important information for studying online education.
Not only does it discuss academic causes that might affect students but also discusses how
the increasing amount of online classes provided can thrust unprepared educators into
roles they are not able to fill.

I find this article very useful as I specifically talk about retention rates and the likelihood of
students returning to studies and pursuing a degree to full completion.

Annotation 2

Bettinger, Eric, and Susanna Loeb. “Promises and Pitfalls of Online Education.” Brookings, The
Brookings Institution, 8 June 2017, www.brookings.edu/research/promises-and-pitfalls-of-
online-education/.

This is a summary of research study performed the author, Eric Bettinger, in which he presents
his findings in a more concise way than his extensive research paper does. In it he speaks
about the promises of online education and the less than fully realized reality that we know
today. He gives specific data that shows with today’s standards students are more likely to
perform poorly than if they took a course online.

This source is useful because it summarizes important research for my topic as well as linking
other articles in its own work cited page that helped me quickly find relevant information
for my paper. The author does have a somewhat negative view of online education but
supports this with data that he and his partners collected.

This source is useful to my paper more as a database with which to locate more sources about
the topic that provide more specific information for my paper.
 Annotation 3

Bettinger, Eric P., et al. “Virtual Classrooms: How Online College Courses Affect Student
Success.” American Economic Review, vol. 107, no. 9, 2017, pp. 2855–2875.,
doi:10.1257/aer.20151193.

This source is a journal in which a group of Stanford professors lead by Eric Bettinger present
data and statistics that they found while researching student performance in online
courses. The researchers found that very little research had been done on the topic
previously and compiled data from DeVry University in order to conduct their research.
The authors found that students generally did worse in online courses than students in the
same course taken on-campus.

The source is very reliable and useful. It presents data in a concise and summarized way that
allows the reader to easily understand it. The authors are reliable as they are employed by
a very credible university with data provided from an unbiased third party in the form of
another University that provides both online and on-campus courses.

This article is very useful to my topic and allowed me to glean information that was incredibly
helpful. I had specific questions and wanted to support my writing with specific data and
this source provided much of what I needed.

Annotation 4

Chandler, David L., and MIT News Office. “Study: Online Classes Really Do Work.” MIT
News, 24 Sept. 2014, news.mit.edu/2014/study-shows-online-courses-effective-0924.

In this article for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology News author David Chandler
discusses the positive outcomes of an increase in online education. Among various claims
Chandler says that students perform at least as well as students in traditional online
settings.

The article uses pre and post test scores as a metric for learning, tests and grades have largely
been shown not to prove that students have learned but that they were able to regurgitate
information back onto it. I believe the article is biased and under researched.

I found this article useful for my refutation section of my paper.

Annotation 5

Dynarski, Susan. “Online Courses Are Harming the Students Who Need the Most Help.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2018,
www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/business/online-courses-are-harming-the-students-who-
need-the-most-help.html.
In this article Susan Dynarski discusses how online classes harm students who need the most
help. In her article she describes how students who require intensive math are randomly
placed in both online and in person classes and how this lack of interaction negatively
affects these students who need the attention of a teacher in order to succeed.

This article is relatively free from bias and it provides information about the difference between
students taking courses both online and in person. While the author does feel that online
courses can hurt students she does provide information that shows some students do
perform well in online courses.

I found this information useful in the section of my paper where I discussed the importance of
human interaction to success in a educational setting.

Annotation 6

Morrison, Debbie. “What Students Really Think about Online Learning.” Online Learning
Insights, 19 Nov. 2014, onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/what-students-
really-think-about-online-learning/.

In this article author Debbie Morrison presents anonymous quoted from students who reported
how they felt about their online course after its completion. The student’s quotes are both
negative and positive and are relatively free from bias.

The students reporting anonymously allows them to say what they really think about the course
instead of being afraid of repercussions from a professor taking their comment personally.
The quotes are very useful for adding a personal touch to your paper in order to
incorporate how students actually feel about online education.

I found the quotations very useful to my topic and allowed me to connect the data I had
previously shared to a more personal feeling to tie the reader into the paper.

Annotation 7

“Online Report Card - Tracking Online Education in the United States, 2015.” OLC,
onlinelearningconsortium.org/read/online-report-card-tracking-online-education-united-
states-2015/.

This website is a compilation of data pertaining to online education. It catalogues increases in

the number of students who participate in online courses. It also presents information to
the opinions of education professionals about online education.

The article simply presents and summarizes data collected from its research, so it does not
contain bias. It can be a very useful resource to someone who is looking for the specific
information presented by the article.
This article will be very useful for my background information section. More specifically the
information collected about the increase in the number of students enrolled in online
courses as well as the decrease in the number of professionals who said online education
would be crucial to the long term success of their university.

Annotation 8

Richmond, Emily. “What Happens When Students Control Their Own Education?” The Atlantic,
Atlantic Media Company, 24 Oct. 2014,
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/10/what-happens-when-students-control-
their-own-education/381828/.

This article reports on Pittsfield Middle High School in New Hampshire. In this school education
is largely put in control of the students, instead of being told what they are going to do in
order to learn they are asked how they would like to learn it and classes are formatted in a
more discussion-based environment.

The article is helpful in helping the reader understand how allowing students to structure their
own education can be beneficial. I had hoped it would include information about students
in online classes, but it focuses on students in a classroom setting.

Ultimately this source was not useful to my research because it did not contain any information
relevant to students in online courses which is the focus of my paper.

Annotation 9

“Tuition/Fees.” Saint Johns River State College, 2018, www.sjrstate.edu/catalog/tuition.pdf.

This document contains pricing for tuition and various fees charged to students who attend St.
Johns River state college.

This document contains no bias as it is simply compiling all the various pricing information
charged to students of this college.

I found it very useful in my background information section in order to show that online courses
are more expensive than on-campus courses.

Annotation 10

Wilson, Dawn, and David Allen. Success Rates of Online versus Traditional College Students .
Research in Higher Education, 2011, www.aabri.com/manuscripts/11761.pdf.

In this journal the authors evaluate success rates in online courses compared to on-campus
courses. They ask the question as to whether students who have lower GPA’s should not be
allowed to take online courses to ensure their success. They evaluate this question be
examining course data from several different classes taught by different professors.
The data is presented in a concise way in which the authors describe what their findings mean.
The data is also presented in charts to that the reader my evaluate the data for themselves.

This journal was useful to me both because it allowed me to evaluate the success rates of online
courses but also because it allowed me to see possible methods to improve the success rate
the basis of my own research paper.