A Comparison Of Internet And Classroom Students Performance In The Course Information Society

Abstract

This empirical study investigated the performance of the students who took an undergraduate course “Information Society” either online, or in a traditional classroom setting in the semesters fall 2002, spring 2003, spring 2004, and summer 2003. Our study analyzed the performance of 279 students in those semesters. The students in each semester or summer session completed the same course work, including listening to the same lectures and taking the same exams. The results of our analysis indicates that that the Internet students performed at least in the same level as the on-campus students and that the online delivery method did not negatively affect success of the students. However, we also found that the non-completion rates for the course Information Society (SOC285) in fall 2002 and spring 2004 were different for students who took the course online or in a traditional classroom setting, indicating that Internet students in the course had more difficulties in finishing the course. The third major finding is that for online delivery, the students in the short summer session (in summer 2003) performed as well as students in normal semesters (fall 2002, spring 2003, and spring 2004) in terms of both completion rate and median scores.