The good ole’ days of “brick-and-mortar” institutions being the only option for achieving your education are long gone. Online colleges, career schools, and courses are becoming popular and are proving themselves to be a viable option for prospective students (or at least so say the experts). In a study conducted by Shelia Tucker titled Distance Education: Better, Worse, or As Good As Traditional Education, she researched 47 undergraduate students taking a business communications course. The students were broken into two groups, traditional and online, and were examined on pre-test scores, post-test scores, age, learning styles, homework grades, research paper grades, final exam scores and final course grades. The study showed significant differences between the two groups when it came to age, post-test scores, and final exam scores with the distance education students scoring the highest in all three categories. The study states that these results may have been related to the fact that the course delivery method can be catered to the individual students’ learning style, as well as, the fact that this method gives them more freedom allowing them to work independently.
Does this study hold any water? In my opinion, yes it does. My personal experiences have involved both methods of learning. I attended a “brick-and-mortar” university where I achieved my 4 year degree and my husband is currently working on achieving his Master’s Degree online. There are positives and negatives regarding both methods; however, I can say without a doubt that my husband definitely has more flexibility and independence with his online courses. The best part about it is that he can study where and when he wants without guidelines or restrictions but it does require an incredible amount of self-discipline and dedication.
So, I ask you – my faithful readers – is one method better than the other or is it just a matter of personal preference? What do you think?
Source: Tucker, Sheila. (2001). Distance Education: Better, Worse, Or As Good As Traditional Education? State University of West Georgia, Distance Education Center. (http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter44/tucker44.html)