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September 2025
Rapid changes in teaching and learning: The response of teachers and students in dual credit courses to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic
Key Points
- Before spring 2020, dual credit course offerings and enrollment had been increasing in Hawaiʻi, but both offerings and enrollment declined from spring 2020 to fall 2020.
- However, course offerings recovered by spring 2021, and student enrollment numbers were higher than they had been in spring 2019. Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic did not cause long-term damage to this educational program.
- In terms of enrollment, male students suffered more from the rapid switch to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic than female students.
- Students succeed in earning dual credit by earning at least a C grade. During the transition to online learning, most groups of students did not experience a statistically significant decline in their dual credit success rates from spring 2019 to spring 2020.
- Male students and those in Title I schools had statistically significant declines in course success rates from spring 2019 to spring 2020; however, both groups then had a statistically significant positive increase in success from spring 2020 to spring 2021.
- Students in rural schools had a statistically significant decline in success rate from spring 2019 to spring 2020, and although their success rate increased from spring 2020 to spring 2021, this increase was not statistically significant.
Abstract
In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to switch quickly to online learning. Before then, Hawaiʻi had been expanding its dual credit program, in which high school students could take courses that would yield both high school and college credits. These dual credit programs require partnerships between high schools and colleges.
RTI International conducted a multi-method analysis to examine the effect of this COVID-19–based transition to online learning on the dual credit, analyzing data from the state longitudinal data system and conducting surveys and focus groups of the University of Hawaiʻi’s instructors, high school coordinators, and high school staff involved with program.
From spring 2020 to fall 2020, students took some dual enrollment courses even though offerings and enrollment declined; offerings and enrollment rebounded by spring 2021. The percentage of course-takers earning both high school and college credit remained about the same during this transition. Examining outcomes for student and school subgroups shows that male students struggled more than female students did with enrollment during this transition, and students in rural schools had a steeper decline in the rate of earning both high school and college credits. However, both groups did begin to recover by spring 2021.
© 2025 RTI International. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.