Online Student Performance Research Articles

Student Performance in Online and Face-to-face Classes: Impact of COVID-19

There have been many dire predictions about online education sweeping aside traditional universities and revolutionizing higher education. While online education has made a huge impact at the graduate level, it has yet to make much impact at the undergraduate level. While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many universities to go online, there have been many questions on the efficacy of online undergraduate education. There are many arguments put forth that undergraduate students in online education, particularly underprepared and disadvantaged students, underperform and on average experience poor outcomes. In this paper, we investigate whether there is a difference in student performance in the face-to-face and online classes during a normal semester. We then look at student performance during spring 2020 where we had to move online mid semester. Did student performance differ between a normal online course and a traditional face-to-face class that was suddenly switched online?

Comparison of Student Performance in Online versus Offline Teaching: A Case-Control Study in Obstetrics and Gynaecology Lectures in the Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID19) pandemic, there was a global need for online learning. Numerous publications were observed both in favour of and against online platforms, but most of them were qualitative. Now that the pandemic is over, we aimed to explore the effectiveness of online teaching compared to offline teaching. Aim: This study aimed to descriptively compare the performance of medical students in online versus offline class teaching of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology course. Materials and Methods: This quantitative retrospective casecontrol study was conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at College of Medicine, Qassim University, from July 2022 to January 2023. The academic year 2018/2019 was considered the control group (August 2018 to June 2019, offline teaching), and the year 2020/2021 was considered the case group (online teaching, August 2020 to June 2021). A total of 123 students had the Obstetrics and Gynaecology course delivered online, compared to a control group of 115 students who had the same course offline. Chi-square test was applied to analyse categorical variables, considering a p-value <0.05 as significant. Results: The measured outcomes included overall students’ performance in terms of marks and grades, as well as performance in relation to gender and attendance rates. Overall, students’ grades and attendance were higher in the online group (p=0.004 and p=0.03, respectively), which was more evident among male students (p=0.009). Conclusion: The findings suggest that medical students’ performance in online learning is comparable to or better than face-to-face teaching. Further research is needed to explore the performance of male students compared to female students.

Online Student Performance System integrating Multidimensional Data Visualization and Chatbot for Primary School

Today's technology has improved to the point that it can be utilized to execute many activities in daily life with minimum effort, and the world has acknowledged the worth of education in one's life. The schools have to analyze student performance manually, which requires a lot of time and effort from teachers to work on. However, the increasing amount of student data becomes difficult to analyze using traditional statistical techniques and database data management tools. The objective of this project is to study the current problems in the online student performance system. A preliminary survey of 30 respondents was conducted in order to gather information based on previous user experiences with the online student performance system. The next objective is to develop an Online Student Performance System integrating Multidimensional Data Visualization and Chatbot for Primary School using Web Development Life Cycle that can visualize student performance systems to assist teachers and parents. Following that, this project employed a tool based on Multidimensional Data Visualization techniques. Google Charts and Dialogflow were used in this project to visualize the dashboard and construct a chatbot for the system. The last objective is to evaluate the usability of the system. There are three experts to test the project usability using the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ). The findings of the project can be used as a guideline to improve the system in the future. Overall, this project will assist teachers and parents in obtaining information about their students’ academic performance. The data about the students' performance can be displayed in the dashboard as a chart, graph, or diagram, and they can also communicate with the chatbot if they require assistance or guidance in using the system and obtaining their students' performance.

Assessing the Performance of Online Students - New Data, New Approaches, Improved Accuracy

Assessing the Performance of Online Students - New Data, New Approaches, Improved Accuracy

Between the Normative and the Interpretive Approach: Student Performance Online Evaluation Challenges in Journalism and Communication Higher Education

n times of pandemic, higher education programmes had to switch quite unexpectedly from educational strategies and techniques that applied within a classical kind of college environment, to the online platforms. 
 If all sorts of platforms proved feasible for seminars, in the case of courses and evaluation activities, some difficulties were encountered and, consequently, demanded special concern and conjugated efforts to roll things out through the thick and thin of a period that required a high level of adaptability on the part of higher education leadership and management, as well as on the part of professors and students.
 A survey addressed to the students and to the professors at the University of Bucharest, College of Journalism and Communication Studies revealed intriguing information regarding our main topic, that of the online student performance evaluation challenges in the journalism and communication higher education in Romania. The response of the majority of the professors to such an unexpected turnout in education within the context of the pandemics was that of a spectacularly more flexible approach mostly to the assessment of student performance, our topic at stake for this research endeavour. 
 Within our research focus, the student and professor preference for measurement and for a normative approach to online evaluation, on the one hand, versus the option for appreciation within an interpretive approach, on the other hand, may account for interesting developments in the educational system of the near future that we seem to have stepped in quite abruptly due to the pandemic.

A Comparison of Student Performance in Online and Face-To-Face Learning for Statistics Subject

Due to the Second Movement Control Order (MCO 2.0), online teaching and learning (TnL) continued. Covid-19 seems to have an impact on students in many ways. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not there are differences in academic achievement between online and face-to-face learning. Hence, the assessment marks for 150 students from the last five semesters of a statistics course were taken. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these five semesters include two sessions of face-to-face learning and three sessions of online learning. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA and Post-Hoc test. Based on descriptive data, it was revealed that the achievement of marks for face-to-face learning sessions in the September - January 2020 session was higher than earlier semesters of study, while female students outperformed male students. However, female students' performance was seen slightly decline for the online semester. The findings from the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) indicated significant differences in achievement based on the semester of study, gender as well as interaction between gender and semester of study on mark achievement. Based on the Post-Hoc test results, it was discovered that face-to-face learning performed better than online learning throughout the last two semesters. However, performance during the first semester of online learning (March - July 2020 session) was similar to that of face-to-face learning. It is intended that the findings of this study would help educators improve the effectiveness of their teaching methods.

Retrospective study of online ligation student practice incorporating flipped learning into e-learning.

PurposeFlipped learning has been applied in various fields, including medical professional education. E-learning is compatible with flipped learning; however, it is considered to be unsuitable for providing training on surgical techniques. In this study, we retrospectively examined the ligation performance of online students who underwent training with flipped learning incorporated into e-learning.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective study of the ligation practices of online students at the Department of General Surgery from March 2020 to June 2021. The subjects included 134 fourth- and fifth-year medical students from Gunma University School of Medicine. We conducted mid-term checks on the 8th day of practice and an examination on the 19th day. Two instructors independently evaluated and calculated scores using the original Global Rating Scale of Gunma University. We also conducted a questionnaire survey on the ligation practice of online students.ResultsThe total average score of the three tasks was 12.4 for Instructor 1 and 12.0 for Instructor 2. All students had a passing score. The questionnaire survey showed that 70% of the students were trained in ligation at the time of the first evaluation.ConclusionsOur online training materials and training methods enabled the acquisition of ligation skills by students who had not previously received ligation training.

Remote learning slightly decreased student performance in an introductory undergraduate course on climate change

Public understanding about complex issues such as climate change relies heavily on online resources. Yet the role that online instruction should assume in post-secondary science education remains contentious despite its near ubiquity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective here was to compare the performance of 1790 undergraduates taking either an online or face-to-face version of an introductory course on climate change. Both versions were taught by a single instructor, thus, minimizing instructor bias. Women, seniors, English language learners, and humanities majors disproportionately chose to enroll in the online version because of its ease of scheduling and accessibility. After correcting for performance-gaps among different demographic groups, the COVID-19 pandemic had no significant effect on online student performance and students in the online version scored 2% lower (on a scale of 0–100) than those in the face-to-face version, a penalty that may be a reasonable tradeoff for the ease of scheduling and accessibility that these students desire.

Critical design elements in online courses

ABSTRACT Course design influences online student performance and engagement. A total of 222 instructors and instructional designers responded to Martin et al.’s Online Course Design Elements instrument to examine the frequency of use of design elements. Among the five factors in the instrument, the interaction and communication subscale had the lowest mean score in comparison to overview, content presentation, assessment and evaluation, and learner support. Both groups rated instructor contact information, chunked content, and assessment alignment with objectives highly. Items that were rated lowly included learner self-assessments and collaborative student activities. Responses by the two groups differed significantly for three items: accommodations for students with disabilities, self-assessment options, and frequent student–student interaction. Results are discussed within the context of the literature. This study has implications for online instructors and instructional designers who design online courses, faculty developers who provide training for instructors, and administrators who build support structures for faculty and staff.

Assessing Online Student Performance via participation, and Examinations as Alternative Measures

Online homework is a relatively new instruction and evaluation technique. While it appears to be an effective tool, empirical studies of its efficacy suggests they have not been done. This paper analyzes correlations among systematic class participation scores, online homework scores and test results from two sections of Effective People Management and two sections of Advanced Human Resource Management taught at a Middle Eastern University – University of Kurdistan Hewler in fall semester 2017.Collection of data were made in four classes of two modules with the outcomes and implications suggesting students were expected to attempt to work on each homework problem three times and were allowed as many attempts as they wished within time limits set by the instructor. Homework problems were made available for extra credit immediately after a new chapter was introduced

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

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.

Investigating the Impact of Online Classes on Undergraduate Degree Completion

This study expands on current research that examines the impact of online courses on retention, degree completion, and student success. The researchers investigated the impact of online courses on degree completion by using existing graduation rate data, course enrollment data, and student grades for undergraduate students at a multi-campus 4-year institution. The researchers aimed to provide advisors, faculty, and administrators with a better understanding of how online classes fit into an undergraduate student’s program of study while completing their degrees within the desired timeframe. The researchers additionally sought to understand the impact of taking online classes on degree completion while controlling for student demographic and academic factors (e.g. age, first-generation student status, socioeconomic status, SAT/ACT scores, and 1st semester GPA) and campus type (traditional flagship, urban research, and regional). Results indicated that regardless of campus type taking one or more online classes during their program of study increased undergraduate students’ likelihood of successful degree completion. Lastly, to provide further insight, this study compared student performance in online and on campus classes. Results for this comparison were mixed; slightly higher or slightly lower online course grades were obtained by students compared to face-to-face course grades depending on type of campus.

The Effect of Procrastination on Academic Performance of Online Students at a Hispanic Serving Institution

Procrastination is a universal conundrum among undergraduates. Furthermore, the effects such procrastination may have on academic performance is a concern. This study seeks to better understand the relationship between academic performance and the actual time of submission of assignments relative to the deadline imposed on those submissions. The authors investigated the effect of academic assignment submission time and the academic grades earned before, on, and after the assignment submission deadline. These results suggest that the earlier assignments are submitted, the higher the grades tend to be. Therefore, if faculty can help undergraduate students cultivate the habit of earlier submission of assignments, the better those students should do in their studies

Student performance in online and face-to-face second language courses: Dutch L2 in adult education

Student performance in online and face-to-face second language courses: Dutch L2 in adult education

Two Case Studies Comparing Flipped Teaching and Online Teaching with the Traditional Lecture‐based Teaching

Flipped teaching has expanded into many classrooms over the recent years due to its student‐centered focus. Similarly, online teaching has also gained popularity due to the flexibility it offers to students. In the first case study, we compared scores on exams from the traditional lecture‐based teaching method with that of a flipped teaching style in a graduate level Advanced Human Physiology (NURS514) course for the Nurse Anesthesia (CRNA) students. In the second case study, we compared scores on exams between a traditional and an online NURS514 course from the Nurse Practitioner (NP) program between two semesters. Since the exam averages were consistently high in every exam whether it was lecture‐based or flipped teaching, there was no significant difference between the two methods of teaching among the CRNA classes. However, over 80% of the CRNA students reported that they would recommend flipped teaching in the future. The NP class, on the other hand, performed significantly better in their exams in the online course compared to the face‐to‐face class (p < 0.05). The success with online student performance is partly due to the flexibility students have in pacing their learning through lecture videos instead of the continuous four‐hour weekly lectures in the face‐to‐face setting. Newer teaching methods such as flipped teaching and online class could successfully replace traditional lecture‐based courses.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Improving Online Course Performance Through Customization

The number of educational courses offered online is growing, with students often having no choice for alternative formats. However, personal characteristics may affect online academic performance. In this study, the authors apply two business analytics methods - multiple linear/polynomial regression and generalized additive modeling (GAM) - to predict online student performance based on six personal characteristics. These characteristics are: communication aptitude, desire to learn, escapism, hours studied, gender, and English as a Second Language. Survey data from 168 students were partitioned into training/validation sets and the best fit models from the training data were tested on the validation data. While the regression method outdid the GAM at predicting student performance overall, the GAM explained the performance behavior better over various predictor intervals using natural splines. The study confirms the usefulness of business analytics methods and presents implications for college administrators and faculty to optimize individual student online learning.

Can online student performance be forecasted by learning analytics?

The paper focuses on utilising learning analytics to assess student performance in an online business. The value of this paper is in the literature review and the process used for analysis since it provides a way of how research in Moodle learning analytics or other similar systems could be leveraged to track student progress and for retention. The engagement analytics module is a relatively new component of Moodle but it has not yet been investigated with respect to student performance or in online business courses. The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive relationships between student academic performance and Moodle engagement analytics indicators along with student online activity data from the system logs. Unfortunately none of the hypothesised learning analytics factors were positively related to, nor could they predict, student academic performance. However, several interesting deductions from the learning analytics data gave rise to ideas for further research. Sense making of puzzling statistics suggested a mediating pattern of students' poor self-regulation skills because more focus was put on the assignment requirements but less on interacting with the lesson materials needed to complete the assignment and thereby resulting in lower grades.

An Integrated Framework to Enhance Performance of Online Students

E-learning has becoming a popular alternative to traditional classroom teaching. The impact of e-learning on education has been rising steadily and shifted the learning paradigm towards learner-centered learning. Assessment is a complex, necessary activity demanding time, effort, resources and emotions of all stakeholders. Assessment for learning is absent in e-learning systems. Education gives importance to assessment as a process for educational improvement. However, e-assessment tools place emphasis on assessment as a process to grade learners rather than value on its ties with learning. These tools may bring efficiency in marking, administration and feedback, but fail to implement these new forms of assessment practices. A true assessment system should provide an opportunity to enhance and promote learning. This paper proposes a framework to integrate assessment into learning with a goal to improve student's achievement and paves the way for improvement.

The Impact of Exam Environments on Student Test Scores in Online Courses

While enrollment in online courses has tripled in ten years, little is known about the impact of different exam-taking environments on learning. A recent study of economics students found that online students taking un-proctored exams scored one letter grade higher than online students taking proctored exams. However, there were no apparent systematic safeguards against cheating in the un-proctored section. This study adds to the literature by comparing student’s performance in online classes with proctored exams to the performance of online students in a carefully controlled online testing environment (Respondus Lockdown Browser [RLB]). Methods: Data refer to 287 students enrolled in a criminology course at a Carnegie research-extensive university. The experimental group consisted of students in online sections who were called back to campus to take exams in a proctored environment. The control group took exams off campus using RLB. All sections were taught by the same instructor. The dependent variable is the score on the standardized final examination. The central independent variable is the type of exam environment: proctored vs. the RLB environment. Results: Controlling for other constructs, there was no significant difference between student exam scores in the proctored sections and the sections employing RLB. Conclusion: The results suggest that the judicious use of RLB can level the playing field between exam scores in proctored vs. nonproctored online sections. Technology such as RLB, which minimizes opportunities for cheating online, may provide tools for fairness in grading. Future work is needed for other courses, other fields, and other types of academic institutions.

A Large Sample Comparison of Grade Based Student Learning Outcomes in Online vs. Face-to-Face Courses

Comparisons of grade based learning outcomes between online and face-to-face course formats have become essential because the number of online courses, online programs and institutional student enrollments have seen rapid growth in recent years. Overall, online education is largely viewed by education professionals as being equivalent to instruction conducted face-to-face. However, the research investigating student performance in online versus face-to-face courses has been mixed and is often hampered by small samples or a lack of demographic and academic controls. This study utilizes a dataset that includes over 5,000 courses taught by over 100 faculty members over a period of ten academic terms at a large, public, four-year university. The unique scale of the dataset facilitates macro level understanding of course formats at an institutional level. Multiple regression was used to account for student demographic and academic corollaries—factors known to bias course format selection and grade based outcomes—to generate a robust test for differences in grade based learning outcomes that could be attributed to course format. The final model identified a statistical difference between course formats that translated into a negligible difference of less than 0.07 GPA points on a 4 point scale. The primary influence on individual course grades was student GPA. Interestingly, a model based interaction between course type and student GPA indicated a cumulative effect whereby students with higher GPAs will perform even better in online courses (or alternatively, struggling students perform worse when taking courses in an online format compared to a face-to-face format). These results indicate that, given the large scale university level, multi course, and student framework of the current study, there is little to no difference in grade based student performance between instructional modes for courses where both modes are applicable.