Assessing Student Performance Between Face-to-Face and Online Course Formats in a College-Level Communications Course

Abstract

This observational study adds to a small number of college-specific studies comparing student performance in online and face-to-face versions of the same course. It also complements more large-scale college-based studies that compare the delivery formats across courses, disciplines, and institutions. Using descriptive statistics and the chi-square and ANOVA methods, the author examined comparative educational outcomes by measuring student performance and key factors of student performance in the same mandatory professional communications course taught simultaneously in an online and face-to-face format over a 5-semester time frame. The findings are consistent with other comparative studies that have established that in comparison to face-to-face students, online students are generally more academically prepared; more mature; and more commonly full-time employed, fluent in the English language, and female. Similar to other studies, the factors of gender, age, education, and writing proficiency are significant indicators of student achievement; the factors of employment hours, native language, and direct/indirect entry are not, which shows some discrepancy with other studies. In terms of overall student performance, online and face-to-face-component students earned similar grades and had similar completion and retention rates. This finding does not concur with a number of studies that show that online students are significantly less likely to successfully complete courses than their face-to-face counterparts. Course type (mandatory, elective, remedial, regular), advancement in a course of study (lower year, upper year), and delivery mode choice (fully online vs. mix of online and face-to-face) are probed as explanatory variables for differences in findings.