earticle

영어

Since the establishment of cyber universities in South Korea in 2001, there have been high societal expectations for these new institutions of higher learning. However, as the dropout rate for cyber universities is higher than standard four-year universities, matters of quality control are increasingly becoming an issue. This study analyses the factors that influence the expansion and maintenance of student numbers in cyber universities. Of the four-year cyber universities that conferred bachelor's degrees in 2013 and 2014, 17 universities were selected in analyzing the factors influencing academic continuity of cyber university students. This study analyzed cyber universities’ offline study halls and study support facilities’ locations, the level of university recognition, the rate of expanding teacher facilities, scale of enrolled students, level of competitiveness for university entrance for freshmen students, cost of education per student, scholarships per student, and the proportion of lectures appointed to full-time faculty against the enrollment rate of new students, the proportion of standard high school graduates which indicates the academic continuity of the freshmen enrollment rate, and the enrollment rate of the entire student body and dropout rate. The results show that the level of competitiveness for university entrance for first year students and the proportion of lectures appointed to full-time faculty are factors with a positive effect, with the level of competitiveness for university entrance for first year students having the greatest influence. Such analysis results show that the factors related to the decision making when students select a university have a significant effect on cyber universities' enrollment and continued learning, suggesting that after enrollment, academic experience has a relatively small influence on continued learning. Therefore, there is a need for cyber universities to improve the quality of learning and teaching as well as increase the information available to students for students to choose cyber universities. There is a need for these two policy directions to be promoted simultaneously to improve the relevancy of programs offered by and demanded of cyber universities.