Abstract:

For varying reasons, concerning costs and revenues, universities and colleges in the U.S. and globally are supplementing the traditional face-to-face (F2F) course delivery model with online and hybrid courses. There is a definite movement to provide more opportunities for students to take courses in non-F2F formats. Seventy-five percent of public universities cited online learning as the number one way they believe they can increase revenues and cut university costs. Yet, oddly enough, only a little more than thirty percent of those surveyed cited efforts to launch or expand online learning.
With some variation, online course delivery involves very little, if any, F2F interaction between the faculty member and the student. There is room for more variation but, in general, emerging hybrid course delivery is being designed to have 51% online interaction and 49% F2F interaction between student and instructor. The result is that the same course material may now be offered in any one of these methods all of which have differing amounts of F2F interaction, by design.

The initial research focus for this study was on whether jurisdictions limited the number of course hours accepted if the delivery method was an online approach or a hybrid approach. The authors were aware of the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy education requirements specifying that no more than one-half of the thirty upper-division accounting hours required to take the exam can be in a non-F2F mode (i.e. online or hybrid). The original impetus for the research was primarily to see how many, if any, testing jurisdictions restricted the number of non-F2F course hours accepted toward taking the CPA exam. As it turns out, Texas is the only state with any limitation on the number of course hours taken in a non-F2F mode. Could it be that Texas is ahead of the movement in this regard? Or, is Texas unjustifiably concerned about the mode of content delivery?

Analysis Of Results – F2F vs. Online

The authors have a four year data set of grade results which were analyzed to make some extremely preliminary comments about F2F versus online instruction. The database is used to compare student performance, as measured by course grades, in a course taught both in the traditional F2F and online methods each spring semester between 2006 and 2009. All sections of this course were taught by the same professor over the four year time frame, using the same textbook, notes, and exams. The authors realize that this is a limited study which should be expanded over a wide base of courses, delivery methods and professors. Thus, the analysis summary is not intended to conclude that non-F2F delivery is inferior to F2F.

A non-rigorous analysis of the data indicates that the F2F method potentially produces better course grades than does the online delivery method. Further research might indicate whether the lack of uniformity in course delivery truly impacts student performance.

This initial research was undertaken to explore the effects of differing course delivery modes. As indicated above, this analysis was not as rigorous as the authors would like due to the limitations of the variables which were available for study. Further research is needed to determine what other variables such as age, ethnicity, etc. might impact a student’s grade in the online environment as compared to a F2F delivery.