The Rush to Online: A Sacrifice in Learning Outcomes?

• In Event: Research: Textbooks and Online Teaching

Abstract

Although there has been an abundant amount of research on the topic of online education in the past 10 years, much of it lacks either the focus or robust measurement to answer a primary question: How do the learning outcomes of online education compare to traditional, face to face classrooms? The purpose of this study was to answer that question, specifically as it related to a technical discipline, accounting. In an attempt to strengthen study results, the study employed multiple measures of learning to assess the learning outcomes by utilizing individual quiz and chapter test grades, a pretest and final exam, and a pre-identified sample of learning objectives selected from the text for the respective courses. The researcher controlled for prior accounting knowledge by adjusting for the pretest scores as well as the students’ prior academic ability (as measured by prior GPA). The study found there were no significant differences in the learning outcomes between the face-to-face and online groups in both ACCT211 and ACCT311 when average quiz grade, average chapter test grades, and final exam grades were used as the dependent variables. There were three learning objectives in the ACCT211 course and one learning objective in the ACCT311 course that had significant differences in the learning outcomes. The relationship between the pretest scores and GPA, and the dependent variable was strong in many of the results.

Author

• Sara Schmidt, Northern State University