What attainment means in research
In education research, attainment usually refers to the level of education a person reaches, shown by something formal: a qualification, a certificate, a number of credits or years completed. It is related to, but different from, achievement, which is about how well someone performs on tests or assignments. A student can achieve high marks in a course and still not attain a degree, and the reverse is also possible.
This distinction explains why studies of open education reach different conclusions. Some ask whether students pass or score higher in a course. Others ask whether students go on to complete programs. Both are legitimate, but they answer different questions, and mixing them leads to overstated claims.
Common ways attainment is measured
Studies tend to rely on a handful of measures, each with its own strengths.
- Qualifications gained. Counting degrees, diplomas or certificates is the clearest form of attainment, but it takes years to observe and many things influence it.
- Credits earned. Credits accumulated in a term or year are quicker to collect and are often available from institutional records.
- Progression. Whether a learner moves on to the next level or course is another sign of attainment, useful when final qualifications are far off.
- Time to completion. Some studies look at how long it takes to finish, since delays can affect whether a learner finishes at all.
- Self-reported attainment. Surveys ask people about their highest qualification. These are easy to run but depend on memory and on who chooses to respond.
Course completion is related but sits closer to a single course than to a whole qualification. Treating a high completion rate in one course as evidence of rising qualifications across a program is a common leap that the data rarely supports.
What the conclusions tend to look like
Because open education covers many things, the conclusions in this area are usually narrow. Typical reported results fall into a few kinds.
First, some institutional studies compare students in courses using free or open materials with students in courses using paid ones, and report on pass rates, grades or credits. Findings in this family are often described as neutral or modestly positive, but they differ by course, institution and design, so it is unwise to treat any single figure as typical.
Second, some work looks at open online courses and the credentials they offer. Here, many learners who enroll do not finish, and the learners who do finish are often already well educated. That does not show that the courses fail. It shows that attainment in this setting depends heavily on who enrolls and why. Many participants are not seeking a qualification at all.
Third, there are broader arguments that cheaper or freer materials could widen participation and so raise attainment over time. These are reasonable hypotheses, but they are harder to test directly than a single-course comparison, and evidence for long-run effects on qualifications is limited.
Why attainment is hard to attribute
Three problems recur.
Selection. Learners who choose open options may differ from those who do not. If motivated students are more likely to pick a free course, a higher completion rate may reflect motivation rather than the course.
Confounding changes. Courses that adopt open materials often change in other ways too, such as new teaching methods or support. If results improve, the cause is unclear. This is the kind of situation where correlation causation is worth remembering: two things happening together does not show that one produced the other.
Time lag. Qualifications arrive long after the course in which materials were used. By then many other influences have operated, so linking a degree to a textbook choice is rarely possible.
Cost, access and indirect routes
A frequently discussed route to attainment runs through money. If students skip buying required books, or take fewer courses to save on costs, then lower prices might help them stay on track. This is plausible and some studies examine credit loads and course withdrawals with this in mind. Even so, textbooks are one cost among many, including tuition, housing and time away from work, and the effect of any one of them is difficult to isolate.
Researchers also note that access to materials and access to a device or connection are separate issues. Free material helps little if a learner cannot open it, a point that connects to the broader digital divide.
Reading an attainment study
When a headline says open education “raises attainment,” a few checks help.
- Is the outcome a qualification, or something shorter-term such as a grade or a pass?
- How long were students followed?
- Were comparison groups similar at the start, and how was that checked?
- Did many participants drop out of the data, and is that explained?
- How large is the effect compared with the uncertainty around it?
- Is the sample close to your own situation, or very different?
Be wary of single percentages without a sample size, and remember that charts can exaggerate small differences. Evidence on teaching and learning approaches is generally mixed, and effects reported in one setting often shrink or disappear in another.
A cautious summary
Studies that examine open materials and attainment tend to measure short-term proxies, such as grades, pass rates and credits, because qualifications take years to observe. Those proxies often show results similar to conventional materials, sometimes slightly better, and with considerable variation. Evidence that open education changes the number of qualifications people eventually earn is more limited and mostly indirect. Anyone making decisions about their own study or an institution’s policy should treat the literature as suggestive rather than settled, and should look at local data where it exists.