A study of completers and non-completers in online professional development courses

This study investigated why professional development courses that are taken by educators at the Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU) of Mississippi State University (MSU) were or were not completed. By considering the results from this investigation, the course developers for future online courses can improve the courses offered to help increase participant retention.;There were 4 research questions investigated for this study to help understand how to improve future course offerings: (1) Why did the participants of online professional development enroll initially? (2) Why did the completers finish the online professional development? (3) Why did the non-completers not finish the online professional development? (4) What does the facilitator perceive as the reasons completers complete and non-completers do not complete the course?;Data for this study were from 10 online professional development courses taken by educators through the RCU. The participants agreeing to participate were asked to complete a beginning and ending survey and an end-of-course evaluation. They were also asked to participate in an interview when the online professional course was finished. Facilitators of the online professional development courses completed a beginning survey and participated in interviews.;Recommendations were made for future researchers and online course developers. (1) Participants pay for the online professional development course before the course begins. (2) All courses have posted technical requirements for participants to have a successful course completion. (3) Courses should have multiple modes of delivery of information to participants---email, discussion boards, wikis, blogs, and virtual classrooms to name only a few options. (4) Ways to increase completion rates should be investigated. (5) The RCU should institute a research policy for every course where enrollees are tracked. (6) As part of RCU quality assurance, the format of the surveys should be investigated. (7) Future studies include courses from other entities over a longer time frame. (8) Future studies should investigate payment options of other entities offering online professional development. (9) Facilitator differences should be analyzed in future studies. (10) Future studies should investigate other entities' facilitator practices.