Academic Coaching and Information Literacy
The attrition rates in higher education are an issue at almost every college, but with attrition rates as high as 70% in some programs distance education courses feel the issue rather acutely (Henke & Russum, 2000). Higher education distance learning (DL) students tend to be adult working professionals with families at home and community activities all competing for time in a limited day. There are many reasons behind the attrition rates and universities are spending a lot of time and money studying the causes and experimenting with solutions to ease this costly issue (Lovitts & Nelson, ND). This exploration will attempt to show how information literacy delivered through academic coaching can be a powerful intervention to reduce the retention rates in distance education.
Information Literacy and the Attrition Rates
Information literacy is about knowing task definition, creating information seeking strategies, locating and accessing information, using information, synthesizing information and evaluating information (Bruce, 2002). According to the Presidential Committee on Information Literacy (1989), information literacy is not only essential in the information age it is a survival skill. In their study of attrition rates between two DL courses, Henke and Russum (2000) pointed out in their recommendations that components of information literacy could help reduce the attrition rates. Some of the known causes of adult professionals dropping out of DL classes related to information literacy challenges include low GPA, conflicts with peers or educators, inability to conform to regulatory structures, or an inability to grasp material (not as in ADD or other condition, just finding the material too hard). All of these challenges can be improved or repaired with timely recognition and intervention of a program that can improve information literacy skills. Some recommendations advocate including information literacy courses or instruction throughout their collegiate careers or classes with librarians for credit (Zabel, 2004). This is certainly helpful, but it does not address many of these at-risk students that do not recognize that they are information illiterate until they are dropping the class. The educator is the person in the best position to spot signs that a student may become an attrition rate statistic. The educator, though, does not necessarily have time to affect the proper intervention. In cases where a student is simply information illiterate the campus tutoring center or online technical support may be most helpful, but in some cases the student has the information but do not use it correctly or is not sufficiently motivated to apply it. In these cases, academic coaching may be most appropriate as an intervention.
Academic Coaching and Information Literacy
Coaching, in terms of adult development has been termed as an intervention in clients adult development over the life span (Laske, 2003). In doing this, coaching takes a look at a greater span of a clients life through assessments and research in building that clients structure of interpretation. Structure of interpretation being the way the world shows up for the client (for the purposes of this examination, the at-risk population of students and their educators), information literacy needs to be continually enhanced to both define and express their structure of interpretation to enact the needed changes for growth. Academic coaching has been used successfully to enact drastic changes in students level of information literacy and growth (Lipton, 2000). Being a relatively new industry, academic coaching is in a position of leadership in helping to enhance the information literacy of both students and faculty since they tend to work from outside the administrative system providing an objective and efficient service. With proper intervention using research based academic coaching; information literacy can be enhanced in the at-risk student population thereby reducing the attrition rates in distance education courses.
Conclusion
This exploration has briefly outlined how the attrition rates in higher education are felt more acutely in distance learning courses and that enhanced information literacy skills can help to reduce this attrition rate. Further, that academic coaching can and has enhanced information literacy among the at-risk student population. This leads to the natural conclusion that academic coaching is a powerful and positive intervention that can help reduce the attrition rate in higher education.
References
American Library Association. (1989). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report. Retrieved May 26, 2006 from http://www.apollolibrary.com/Library/ERR/ElectronicReserveReadings.aspx
Bruce, C. S. (2002). Information Literacy as a Catalyst for Educational Change: A Background Paper. White Paper prepared for UNESCO, the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and the National Forum on Information Literacy, for use at the Information Literacy Meeting of Experts, Prague, and the Czech Republic.
Henke, H. & Russum, J. (2000). Factors Influencing Attrition Rates in a Corporate Distance Education Program. Retrieved May 27, 2006 from http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/NOV00_Issue/story03.htm
Laske, O. (2003). An Integrated Model of Developmental Coaching: Researching New Ways of Coaching and Coach Training. Retrieved March 13, 2006 from peer.ca Lipton, L. (2000). More than a Matter of Degrees. Community College Week. Vol. 13, issue 8
Lovitts, B. E. & Nelson, C. (ND). The Hidden Crisis in Graduate Education: Attrition from PhD Programs. Retrieved May 27, 2006 from http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/2000/00nd/ND00LOVI.HTM
Zabel, D. (2004). A Reaction to "Information Literacy and Higher Education." Journal of Academic Librarianship. Retrieved May 27, 2006 from http://www.apollolibrary.com/Library/ERR/ElectronicReserveReadings.aspx
