This study investigated the relationship between the proportion of coursework students complete in an online format absent traditional classroom interaction and their expected score on a standardized, content-driven achievement test, holding constant other factors expected to influence test scores, including demographic variables, major, and prior academic performance. The study's sample involved 817 undergraduate business majors at a small, specialized, private, not-for-profit U.S. institution of higher education and their performance on Educational Testing Service's Major Field Test in Business (MFT-B). Students in the sample chose course-by-course to take either a hybrid format that involved regular classroom meetings supplemented by online learning or an entirely asynchronous online course involving no face-to-face interaction. Learning outcomes, syllabi, assessments, duration and the pool of instructors were the same in both formats. This investigation was motivated by the changing role of distance education in higher education and the increasing fungibility of credits earned at a distance and those earned in a traditional, classroom-based context. The use of the MFT-B was motivated by the growing emphasis on student learning outcomes assessment and mounting demands for "accountability" in higher education. An ordinary least squares regression modeling MFT-B score as a function of proportion of credits completed at a distance, GPA, major, transfer credits, completion time, age, gender and ethnicity found proportion of study at a distance to have a strongly significant (p<.001), positive impact on expected MFT-B score. A logistic regression of likelihood of graduation as a function of those same variables found a strongly significant (p<.001) negative impact of study at a distance on retention to graduation. / Educational Administration
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/1219 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Finnegan, Brian |
| Contributors | Caldwell, Corrinne A., DuCette, Joseph P., Jordan, Will J., Laufgraben, Jodi Levine, 1966-, Schifter, Catherine |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 161 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/1201, Theses and Dissertations |
Page generated in 0.0028 seconds