Employer Perceptions of Online Degrees: A Literature Review

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring121/columbaro121.html


Abner

 

I only did a quick read but this really looks interesting. I do plan to read it in detail. In the meantime, I look forward to any comments that others on this board will surely have concerning the results of this study. Thanks for posting the link.

 

All I needed to read while skimming over it was this:

Throughout the empirical studies, as well as Carnevale’s (2005, 2007) popular media articles that cite empirical studies, potential employers gave the following reasons for their reticence in accepting online degree credentials:

1 lack of rigor,
2 lack of face-to-face interactions,
3 increased potential for academic dishonesty,
4 association with diploma mills,
5 concerns about online students’ true commitment evident from regularly venturing to a college or university physical location, considered by some to be an important part of the educational experience.

Whatever.

 

Agreed. It has been my experience it takes greater commitment from s student choosing to earn a degree via distance education delivery methods whether it be traditional correspondence or online.

 

I think we should be careful about saying that online students have MORE commitment than onground students lest we run the risk of coming off as our opponents do.

There's no question that convenience is a major factor to online studies. The real question should be why is that a bad thing when we seek convenience in every other aspect of our professional lives.

Also, convenience could also equate to opportunity cost. If you're traveling to and from class, that's time you can't use elsewhere. A savvy manager understands opportunity costs.

 

Let me rephrase my previous point, distance education students require more self-discipline and motivation to be successful in their studies towards a degree, diploma or certificate. Time management skills and work-life balance due to employment, family, and other obligations or interests are essential because there are no rigid schedules imposed by their academic undertakings.

I would hate myself if I came off sounding like the many detractors of non-traditional delivery of post-secondary education.

 

They are all legitimate concerns in my opinion. Not fatal certainly, but legitimate nevertheless. If I was hiring, I'd share them.

DL degrees might need some specialized selling.

Addressing the highlighted one, a concern with DL students might be a lack of commitment. If a student doesn't want to even visit campus, then he or she might not be treating higher education as seriously as it needs to be treated. There's a troubling tendency to cut corners with DL. Similar concerns are raised by people trying to test-out of everything as quickly as possible by skimming study guides. The commitment point is probably continuous with the point about "rigor".

One way to address that concern might be for the graduate to emphasize what he or she was doing while taking the DL program. If that was active work in the field of the degree, real practical experience, then the DL degree might rise like a rocket in the employer perception charts.

 

Note of course the positives:

"Conditions that could influence online degree acceptance in the hiring process were:

* name recognition/reputation of the degree-granting institution,
* appropriate level and type of accreditation, "

Again, this is why the school and accreditation are still important.

 

I'm sorry, but the student's true commitment is evident by his or her grasp of the material.

I'm sure that the employers who cite number five as a concern also frown upon Devry and UoP on-campus students.

 

"Adams and DeFleur (2005) state, “although there are some 678 non-resident degree programs available online, only a handful of these are fully accredited or taught from recognized institutions” (p. 72)."

Don't you hate these kind of generalized statements? Maybe the reference provides quantitative data and defines "recognized institutions."

Does anyone have a recent count of on-line programs?

 

The first major study of employer acceptance -- Sosdian & Sharp in the late 1970s, for the National Institute of Education -- not only found near-100% acceptance, but also identified a significant subset of employers who preferred the non-resident degrees, because that showed the student was capable of self-directed independent work, etc.

Of course, in those prehistoric times, the study was based only on students and alumni of the three schools now called Excelsior, Charter Oak, and Thomas Edison. Charter Oak was not accredited at the time of the study.

 

I think with anything, it depends on the person (who holds the online degree), the program, and the school.

At my current company (a major financial services company), my employer gladly pays for any education that fits relatively within the organization i.e. business, accounting, finance, econ, law, HR, IT, CS, IS, etc.

My company will pay 90% tuition to any school that is accredited as long as the grade is C or higher. My company will not pay for doctorate level education. They also pay for any course that is related to the program that the student is studying-- for example if you have to take a history or literature course as part of a bachelor's program, the company will pay for it (unlike many other companies I worked for where each course is judged).

However, my company is also not one of those who believes someone needs to have an MBA to be a leader. In fact, I would say most of the management lack MBAs or higher than Bachelor's degrees. Also, whereas my own leadership is probably the best leadership I have ever worked under, my own leadership would not allow a MS, MA, or MBA candidate come above a candidate who had a Bachelor's for the simple reason they believe more in experience, incremental leadership over the years, etc.

I.e. my leadership FULLY supports my efforts in continuing my education and I have no doubt that my education will help me, but then again I am already well regarded in their leadership anyhow...

 

It seems kind of weaselly to me. They don't define "handful" with a real number or percentage, and "recognized institution" could be one that the study itself recognized. Generalized statements don't bother me that much, but if it's the entire basis for the article or findings, then it strikes me as being lazy or trying to fudge data to get the result you want. There are plenty of writers (etc) who won't bother reading the data tables and just read the summary of findings.

John Bear: I've found that to be true a lot lately. Good independent workers are a necessity in any work environment.

 

3) Increased potential for academic dishonesty?

Tell my buddies I went to a brick and mortar community college with! They cheated ALL TIME TIME AS A TEAM!! It was disgusting, they never tried to hide it from the other students either.

These folks don't have it at all. This is just old school thinking. In a lot of cases they are not going to know if the degree came from the classroom or the computer.

Time to move aside HR departments all over the US, the online revolution is here!

 

Recruiting,

I'm not going to tackle the academic dishonesty question. However, you raise a good point regarding the fact that HR departments, hiring managers, etc, will often have no idea that a degree was earned in the classroom or online. This would likely be the case if a student selected a local (or fairly local) B&M school with an online program. For example, I live outside of Philadelphia. Now, if I completed my degree at Drexel University (which has many online degree programs, and a large B&M campus in Philadelphia), who would know that my classes were taken online or on campus? The course numbers are the same, and there is no distinction made on the diploma or the transcripts as to how the degree was earned.

Now, in my case, I would be upfront with any potential employer and proudly inform them that I earned my degree online. I have no desire to work for a company who discriminates on any level. If they didn't like it, I would just move on.

 

Dishonest students will cheat whether they are in a B&M program or online. How hard is it to take someone else's test in a lecture hall with 300 other people? Not very. But I don't see anyone calling for the disgrace of those programs.

 

1. If the main issue was academic dishonesty, i would frankly say that it will be easier through online, at the choice of a particular student who would have also tried to(or) cheat in trad school.

2. If you are talking about competence, particularly on field related jobs, I happened to have the opportunity of finding out that those doing online while wokring are better on the job and more independently productive and as a result get job easier based on competence, which eventually is what the employer needs, though this might not hold for academic employers(schools)