Marjorie Ivy was the student who read every discussion thread, thought deeply about the material, and felt genuinely connected to her online classmates. She just never posted.
"I've been that student who reads every discussion thread, thinks deeply about the material, and never posts," Ivy said. "I wanted to see if we could give data and language to the quieter forms of engagement that often go unnoticed."
Ivy, who graduated from Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science program in 2025, is now the lead author of a new study that challenges a common assumption about online learning: that students who lurk are less engaged than those who post. Her research is part of a pair of studies from Georgia Tech that are reshaping how educators think about what actually predicts student success.
The studies, presented at the Learning@Scale conference in Seoul, South Korea, draw on data from one of the world's largest online degree programs. Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science program enrolls thousands of students and gives researchers a unique window into patterns that smaller programs might miss.
The first study took a hard look at admissions. Researchers analyzed years of application materials and student performance data to see whether grades, test scores, and background information could predict what happened after students enrolled. They found that admissions data worked reasonably well for predicting who would apply and who would actually start classes. But when it came to forecasting who would stay and succeed over time, application information fell short. Early-course performance—how students did in their first classes—turned out to matter far more.
David Joyner, executive director of the program, said the finding validates a different approach to admissions. Georgia Tech's program has never required applicants to have a computer science background or a strong undergraduate record. Instead, it evaluates students more holistically, looking at their overall background rather than just grades and test scores.
"I thought there would be some signal in the application data," Joyner said. "It's encouraging that there's not."
The second study focused on students like Ivy—those who rarely contributed to online discussions but might still be deeply involved in their courses. The researchers surveyed students about belonging, peer interaction, and whether they felt their contributions mattered. Using similarity algorithms that group students by shared attitudes, they found that some of the quietest students actually reported feeling just as connected to their classmates as the most active posters.
Together, the studies point to the same conclusion: the easiest things to measure are not always the most meaningful. Joyner hopes other universities will take notice.
"We should be giving more students the chance to succeed, because higher education is not currently accommodating plenty who can succeed," he said.