Abstract
Online education continues to increase. With increased online offerings, it is important to evaluate the integrity or equivalence of online/hybrid courses relative to face-to-face (F2F) courses. This study used three separate samples of business undergraduates taking both online/hybrid and F2F courses in the same semester (i.e., mixed course delivery format), across summer, fall and spring semesters. Eight items were used to assess students’ perceived favorability of online courses (PFoOC) compared to F2F courses. Across all three samples, two related but distinct sources for course comparison consistently emerged, instructor-related and peer related. An eight-item measure represents a necessary improvement over a previously developed four-item PFoOC measure, because it allows for additional relevant item comparisons between online/hybrid versus F2F courses. It is hoped that this measure can be used to further research evaluating online education.
Highlights
The Babson Survey Research Group (2017) found that for 2016, distance/online education college student enrollment had increased for the fourteenth straight year
Near the end of each semester all business undergraduate students who enrolled in at least one synchronous online or hybrid course and an F2F course were contacted by school email address and asked to voluntarily complete an online survey
Respondents had generally taken a larger number of online versus hybrid courses prior to being sampled and the reported number of total current semester courses supports the high percentage of participating full-time students across the three samples
Summary
The Babson Survey Research Group (2017) found that for 2016, distance/online education college student enrollment had increased for the fourteenth straight year. Reasons for taking online courses include: flexible scheduling (Daymont, Blau, & Campbell, 2011), and convenience (Cochran, Baker, Benson, & Rhea, 2016), as well as motivation-related factors such as challenging course material (Eom & Ashill, 2016), and self-discipline (Comer et al, 2015). Students who take both F2F and online/hybrid classes simultaneously in a semester represent a “mixed course delivery format” sample (Blau & Kapanjie, 2016; Blau, Pred, Drennan, & Kapanjie, 2016; Blau & Drennan, 2017). Prior research on measuring perceived factorability of online (versus F2F) classes is reviewed below
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