African American Males and Online Education: A Review of the Literature

Online education is continuing to grow in popularity with students with more and more institutions offering fully online degrees. In addition, online education potentially offers a color free environment where students are less likely to be judged by race and treated more equally as this is one of the benefits of online education. However, African American male students are not as likely to enroll in online classes. This literature review examined factors related to African American male students and the online course environment including general characteristics of online learners, attrition rates among online courses, and gender gaps in both onsite and online courses within higher education. In addition, African American student online enrollment trends, characteristics of African American online learners, achievement gaps in both onsite and online courses within higher education, the influence technology and user skills as well as economics and academic influences that may have contributed to African American male online learners' positive experience were reviewed.