This paper examines the effect of uncapped admission policies and highly mediated learning environments on student outcomes in an innovative research university over a the three year period (2012-2015). Drawing on the evidence produced by the Delivering Success project at Charles Darwin University , the paper explores the methodological and substantive issues encountered in estimating the unique and combined effects of online participation on patterns of student retention and academic achievement in a context of rapid increases in the diversity of student background and the externalization of study modes. The analysis draws on recent developments in causal inference through counterfactual and causal mediation modelling with observational data, where confounding effects are either unmeasured or unknown.

References:

Morgan, S.L. & Winship, C. (2015) Counterfactuals and Causal InferenceL Methods and Principles for Social Research. New York, Cambridge University Press.

Nelson, K. (2015) Using K-Means Clustering to model Students LMS Participation in Information Systems, Issues in Information Systems Volume 16, Issue IV, pp. 102-110.

Tyler, W. (2015) Causal Inference and Treatment Effect: An integrative framework for evaluation research. Paper presented at the 2015 Oceania Stata Users Group meeting, Australian National University, Sept. 24-25th, available at http://www.stata.com/meeting/australia15/abstracts/