Do Online Students Perform Better than Face-to-face Students? Reflections and a Short Review of some Empirical Findings

Abstract

The increases in the number of online courses given by universities have been quite dramatic over the last couple of years. Nowadays, many universities even give complete degree programs online where instructions and lectures in the form of, for example, streaming videos, are available for students to watch 24 hours a day. In a sense, the use of Internet and Interactive Computer Technologies (ICT) in higher education can be compared to any other type of teaching tool, such as the blackboard and overhead projectors. The motivation for using the Internet and ICT in higher education, from an economic point of view, is if they are more effective as teaching tools compared to any relevant alternative. That is, all else being equal, if the Internet is an effective teaching tool in that students who attend online courses or complete degree programs perform better in terms of marks in the final exam compared to face-to-face students. In this paper we reflect on and summarize some of the empirical findings in the literature on the effects of online teaching on student performance compared to face-to-face equivalents.