Just to jump in on the issue of failing courses. Educational theory was my profession for a good part of my life.
Researchers examining why students pass and fail courses in the regular education system have generally come to agreement on some issues. Most importantly, there is a consensus that in a proper educational system and course, a student who does not have a handicapping condition, is properly motivated, and does not have distracting factors (drug and alcohol use, home environment problems, etc.) will succeed in a course at a high level. If the student fails, then there is at least one and probably more than one reason. This includes the following problems.
Missing prerequisite skills: All courses build on a student's existing knowledge and skill. In an advanced course, the student should have been previously successful in a course that teaches the foundational knowledge needed for he present course. A student who has just completed Algebra I will not do well in a calculus class.
Unrealistic time frame: Teaching the content of a course takes a certain amount of time, but that varies to a degree from student to student. Some take longer than normal, and some learn more quickly. A well-designed course should have a planned time frame that will be sufficient for all but the most challenged students to succeed in that time. To give a ridiculous example, no one will learn calculus in a week.
Unrealistic transfer loads: New learning builds on old learning. A properly designed course sequences instruction in steps so that the student can learn one skill or concept and then move logically to the next level of instruction that builds on that previous learning. The instructor adds to the old learning--that is called a transfer load. If that load is too little, then the student becomes bored. If that load is too great, the student will fail. Here is an example from OW instruction: partial mask flood followed by full mask flood followed by no mask breathing followed by mask removal and replacement followed by no mask swim with mask replacement.
Non-aligned assessment: A study by Alan Cohen of the University of San Francisco analyzed assessments across the nation and found that more than 60% of the assessments assessed something other than what was taught. In those cases, the teachers would have been surprised to see that their assessments were not aligned with their instruction, but in scuba instruction, it should be obvious. I have been involved in a lot of discussions involving technical diving in which participants agreed that in many cases, students are assessed on skills they have not been taught at all. Many instructors will have students perform skills that have not been explained or demonstrated to them. It has happened
often in my own scuba training at a number of levels, and I assure you it is very frustrating.
Poor instructional technique: Different instructors have different abilities to communicate with students. I used to coach girls' basketball. A few decades ago I went to a clinic conducted by two of the most successful college coaches in history. These two coaches took turns teaching basketball strategies to a group of athletes they had never met before the clinic. All of us in attendance later talked about what a revelation it was to see them coach. Their ability to communicate new ideas to those people bordered on the miraculous, and it was patently obvious why they were so successful. the opposite can also be true. There are people who simply can't seem to communicate anything to anyone. A friend of mine went to college planning to be an engineer, but in his first semester he failed calculus miserably. He did not have a clue about it. He then retook the course with another instructor and got an A with ease. It all seemed crystal clear to him, and he never had a problem in math again.
Learning interference: If you look at
interference theory, you see that some learning can interfere with the student's ability to learn other material. The most common place you see this is in content overload. Put simply, if I rattle off 100 numbers and then ask you to repeat the first 5, you probably won't get any. If I take my time to list 10 numbers and then ask you to name 5, you will probably get them all. One of the top educational theories of curriculum design today,
Understanding by Design, tells course designers to examine the course content and divide it into essential learnings, important learnings, things that are good to know, things that would be nice to know but really aren't important, and things you really don't need to know. You have to focus instructional design accordingly. In curriculum analyses that I have done, it is astonishing how much time is often spent on the least important categories, and every minute spent in those two categories interferes with the student's ability to learn what is really important.
In summary, if students are carefully screened to be sure that they have the necessary prerequisite skills to begin the course, if they are motivated properly, if the course designed properly, and if the instructor uses good instructional technique, students should pass, and they will have earned that pass. If a course has a high failure rate, then something is wrong, and a wise instructor should do an analysis to see why that might be true.
