Research design

The aim of the LAMASS@DiLea project is to identify the underlying causes of academic success and dropout in digital study formats. Heublein and colleagues (2017) were able to identify factors related to success and dropout in a large study. However, the focus of this study was on traditional study formats at face-to-face universities. The situation of digital study formats, especially in distance learning, could not be taken into account in this study. LAMASS@DiLea aims to fill this research gap. This study pursues the idea that an expanded research approach that takes into account the situation of digital study formats will make an important contribution with regard to the understanding of factors related to study success and drop-out in digital study formats as well as in traditional ones. For example, the existing data (Heublein et al., 2017) from the survey of around 6,000 exmatriculated students from traditional study formats at face-to-face universities are expanded to include data from exmatriculated students in digital study formats (e.g. FernUniversität in Hagen, AKAD University Stuttgart).

First, through literature and qualitative studies, factors are identified that can play an important role in study success and dropout, especially in digital study formats, followed by the quantitative main study, the interpretation of the research results and the formulation of recommendations. The focus is on three levels: subjective (e.g. digital skills, self-regulated learning), curricular (e.g. study structure, organization and quality of courses, flexibility) and institutional (e.g. central or specialist study advice, psychological advice). Another focus of this project is the evaluation of the possibilities regarding learning analytics and artificial intelligence (Brown et al., 2020). These approaches offer promising explanatory models with regard to the prospects of success or failure in digital study formats and form a bridge between the curricular and institutional levels in interaction with the subjective level.