Reflections on Seeking the ‘Invisible’ Online Learner

While much has been written regarding the learning behaviors of students participating in online courses, little research has been conducted to ascertain whether or not students are still engaged and actually learning even when not visibly involved in online discourse with other students and faculty. This work summarizes a preliminary study of inactive students enrolled in an online graduate course, augmented by further reflections of the author, based on experience and observation of online student behaviors over a five-year period following the initial study. These findings identify how much time is spent in course related activity, what the reasons are for ‘invisibility,’ and if preferred learning styles influence their online behavior. The data shows that these students do, in fact, spend a significant amount of time in learning related tasks, even when not visibly participating, and they feel they are still learning and benefiting from this low-profile approach to their online studies. Preliminary analyses of course grades indicate that the mean grade is better for high-visibility learners than for no-visibility learners. Subsequent reflections reinforce these findings, and suggest that further research on so-called invisible learners is a critical area of investigation to better understand the dynamics of asynchronous learning and teaching at a distance.