[Air-L] Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

[Christian Nelson]

Oops, forgot that pesky new policy and responded only to Gerry.
Anyway, here are my concerns about this news.
First, I wonder if the researchers controlled for student ability and  
motivation. Online students tend to be the more bright and motivated  
ones.
Second, I wonder if they controlled for amount of student-teacher  
interaction. I suspect that most online teachers are adjuncts and non- 
tenured folks from whom much student interaction time can be demanded,  
and student-instructor interaction seems unavoidable in online  
courses, much as online instructors might seek to limit it. (At least,  
that was true in the one I took. My professor vigorously tried to  
avoid or at least lessen interaction, but had a hard time doing so.)   
On the other hand, most off-line teaching is low in student-teacher  
interaction. Research indicates that even most discussion section  
teaching is lecturing--the same kind of thing you'd find in a large  
lecture hall . . . or on a TV delivering distance ed. courses for that  
matter. In light of that, it is little wonder that students might do  
better online, given that interaction is unavoidable in online courses.
If amount of interaction is the cause of the difference found here, it  
is then misleading to pose this as a difference between online and  
"face-to-face" teaching, and unfortunate that it does so, because I'm  
sure that truly discussion-focused face-to-face teaching trumps online  
teaching, at least as its found in the majority of places today. And  
there's no guarantee that online teaching will maintain its level of  
student-instructor interaction--soon we'll have teaching via video- 
conferencing and with it a likely increased presence of lecturing and  
its equivalents online.
--Christian Nelson


On Aug 19, 2009, at 2:35 PM, McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] wrote:

> Colleagues/
>
>
>
> A Wednesday PM (CT) Discovery !!
>
>
>
> /Gerry
>
>
>
> New York Times / August 19, 2009, 1:08 pm / Updated: 1:29 pm / Steve
> Lohr
>
>
>
> A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI
> International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic
> title, but a most intriguing conclusion:
>
>
>
> "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better
> than those receiving face-to-face instruction."
>
> [snip]
>
>
>
> Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were
> quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the
> same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that,
> on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank
> in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the  
> average
> classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile.
>
>
>
>>>> That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.<<<
>
>
>
> [snip]
>
>
>
> Until fairly recently, online education amounted to little more than
> electronic versions of the old-line correspondence courses. That has
> really changed with arrival of Web-based video, instant messaging and
> collaboration tools. The real promise of online education, experts  
> say,
> is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual
> students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more "learning  
> by
> doing," which many students find more engaging and useful.
>
>
>
> [more]
>
>
>
> Links to the original NYTimes article and the full DOEd report  
> available
> from
>
>
>
> [ http://tinyurl.com/nk97w8  ]
>
>
>
> Enjoy !
>
>
>
> /Gerry
>
>
>
>
>
> Gerry McKiernan
>
>
>
> Associate Professor
>
>
>
> Science and Technology Librarian
>
>
>
> Iowa State University Library
>
>
>
> Ames IA 50011
>
>
>
>
>
> gerrymck at iastate.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> There Are No Answers, Only Solutions / Olde Irish Saying
>
>
>
>
>
> The Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed /
>
>
>
> Attributed To William Gibson, SciFi Author / Coined 'Cyberspace
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/