Online Article Read and Summary

Researchers often measure the success of online learning as students’ perception of learning and course throughput rates. Drop-out rates for online courses range from 20 to 50%, often 10–20% higher than for equivalent contact courses (Bernard, Brauer, Abrami, & Surkes, 2004). Searching for a model to predict student success in online learning, Bernard et al. (2004) found that students’ frame of mind can predict readiness for learning and affect course outcomes, while ‘‘prior achievement is still the best predictor of future achievement’’ (Bernard et al., 2004, p. 44).

Research shows that online participation is necessary to ensure successful course completion (Klemm, 1998; Rovai & Barnum, 2003; Swan, Shea, Fredericksen, Pickett, & Pelz, 2000). Clark and Feldon (2005) concluded that a facilitator who participates and interacts with students prevents them from abandoning their course. Better cognitive outcomes occur when students engage and form a virtual community of learners. The development of a community depends on online interaction with their peers and the facilitator. Learner satisfaction, perseverance, and cognitive outcomes characterize the formation of a virtual learning community. Some contest participation as a prerequisite to learning, claiming students learn sufficiently by observation (Beaudoin, 2002; Sutton, 2001), and lobby for leniency towards lurking or read-only participation. This article responds to Beaudoin’s (2002) article ‘‘Learning or lurking? Tracking the ‘invisible’ online student.’’ He reasoned that students sometimes engage and learn even when not taking part in online discussions with faculty and other students and showed that low profile students:
spend a significant amount of time in learning-related tasks, including logging on, even when not visibly participating, and they feel they are still learning and benefiting from this low-profile approach to their online studies. (p. 147)

We investigated the importance of student online ‘‘visibility’’ apparent in the quantity and quality of participation. We explored as a case study the successful completion of a postgraduate online course by asking the following research questions.
(1) How did online participation relate to learning and successful course completion?
(2) How did participation influence the learning community?