Students performance between classical and online education: a comparative study

Abstract

Writing study materials in online interactive forms can be seen as an optional choice to some educators or in some study domains. However, using online and interactive e-learning systems to communicate with students should not be seen as an option any more. In this paper, we analyse the impact of online education on students' learning or performance. A set of experiments were conducted in the Faculty of Computers and Information Technology at the University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Over 900 students have participated in the study between the years 2011 and 2014. We evaluated the results between the different teaching methods each year as well as between different classes over a three-year period. Students involved in the online method have achieved a slightly better performance in examinations compared to other students. It is clear that young generations are consuming a significant amount of their time on mobile devices, tablets and gadgets...etc. Bringing education materials to those devices can help them utilise some of this time for educational purposes and improve their skills.