Do On-Line Students in a Mastery Based Principles Course Analyze, Synthesize And Evaluate Better Than Face-To-Face Students? Preliminary Evidence

An asynchronous course in the introduction to economic analysis depends on mastery of content before students may progress to the next module. Each module is formulated with introduction, content, graded and non-graded assessment. Student success in a similar course over four semesters is pronounced with little withdrawal and mostly grades of A being received. This paper tells why the instructional design, the testing environment and the degree of student and professor interaction that leads to these observed outcomes. The authors at the University of Akron are undertaking an experiment comparing the success rates of face-to-face to online courses. Student success on a first and final examination and a common writing assignment in two undergraduate economics courses with different instructional designs is examined. The study finds that the level of prior economic literacy, awareness of economic facts and trends, attitudes towards economics, and previous grades and academic characteristics are important in explaining student success. Previous research has shown that students in online courses do not do significantly worse than face-to-face students, but can not perform on as high a complex plane. Our study suggests that the online students do as well in complex tasks. The experiment is ongoing and will not conclude until end of the Spring Semester 2003.