It is that time again, time to schedule classes for the upcoming semester. Personally, I have never been interested in taking an online class. I feel as if I would not be motivated to teach myself the material and I think it would be difficult to remember due dates of exams and other assignments. I understand that everyone’s minds work differently and some people enjoy taking online classes. I am in the middle of deciding if I should take an online class or not and I was actually surprised with the research that I found.
There was a study done by U.S. News at six universities during the fall of 2011. Researchers split students up into two groups. One group completed the traditional course while the other group completed a hybrid version. The hybrid version consisted of an online class with an in-class instruction once a week for an hour. All participants had to take a test before and after the course. The results showed that students in the online class had slightly better scores.
The groups that the students were split into were successfully randomized. They separated them by age, gender, ethnicity, academic background and family income. However, they could not control differences in teacher quality. One way that I would change the study is to have the same teacher teach both classes. This would be the only way you could rule out teacher quality. Even if the teacher is not high quality, at least the students in both groups would be exposed to the same teaching style. Also, the same teacher should travel from university to university and that one teacher should teach the two classes at each university that the study was completed at.
Now it is important to remember that correlation does not equal causation. This study is observational, so researchers cannot prove that learning through an online class is better than learning in a traditional classroom setting. We also have to remember that the results can always be due to chance. Something that the article did not mention was how the tests were administrated. If the students who were enrolled in the online class took their tests online they would have access to other resources to complete the test. Students in the traditional classroom would not be able to use any notes or online materials to help them with the test. This could be a big reason why students in the online class scored higher on the tests.
Overall, I do not think that this study favors one side or the other given the evidence. As I mentioned previously, every student has their own personal preference on how they enjoy learning. If online classes benefits your learning, then I recommend taking them. If you have never taken an online class before, Penn State has recently released an online survey that students can complete to figure out if they are ready to take an online class or not. Take the survey to see which environment you learn best in!
I am actually taking an online course this semester for the College of Communications. This course focuses on grammar techniques and rules and I have found that I hated the course at the beginning because it was just another course that I had tests and homework in, but now I’m finding that teaching myself the material has been good for me. It has given me a sense of time management and I’ve also gained more responsibility because I know that I “get out what I put in.” Also, I know that if I get a poor grade, then I can’t blame it on the teacher or any other factors, because I am the teacher!
This is a really great post! I love the topic since I have an online and hybrid class this semester that I am not to found of. I like how you analyzed all the material and still had your personal opinion in their. I personally learn by doing and working in groups so I prefer the traditional feel rather than online when I tend to do everything last minute because it isn’t on my mind like the classes that I actually physically go to. I found this article that talks about the differences in an online class vs. a traditional one and I especially liked the social interaction because I feel for me that is what makes learning fun. Group projects were always my favorite because I got to work with my friends and have fun along the way. Flexibility and discipline were also discussed in the article. I like the fact that I can do the work whenever I want for these two classes but the problem is I don’t have the mind set to make myself sit down and do the work. My advisor told me that for the online class (Comm 160) sometimes students forget they are enrolled in it and do every lesson in one week at the end to catch up.
http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/college-life/online-vs-traditional-education-answer-never-expected/
I really enjoyed your article, I am currently taking one of Penn States online classes for my major and I definitely have an opinion on it. There is certainly a learning curve and I found that for the first few weeks me and some others in the class were all experiencing difficulty and were frustrated because we could not contact anyone about it, or we tried and received no response. The actually of the situation was due to teacher error, she had family issues and neglected to inform anyone so for weeks nobody was grading the class properly. But we received a new teacher and I have found that being forced to sit down and teach myself material has really improved my learning of the subject! My grades increased dramatically and now whenever I have questions the new instructor actually emails me back. I guess technical difficulty is still one of the major drawbacks to online learning, were this professor in a classroom I could have confronted her with my issues much earlier.