Cognitive Style and Self-Efficacy: Predicting Student Success in Online Distance Education

This study was designed to identify those learner attributes that may be used to predict student success (in terms of grade point average) in a Web-based distance education setting. Students enrolled in six Web-based, general education distance education courses at a community college were asked to complete the Group Embedded Figures Test for field dependence/independence and the Online Technologies Self-Efficacy Scale to determine their entry-level confidence with necessary computer skills for online learning. Although the students who were more field independent tended to have higher online technologies self-efficacy, they did not receive higher grades than those students who were field dependent and had lower online technologies self-efficacy. Cognitive style scores and online technologies self-efficacy scores were poor predictors of student success in online distance education courses.