Comparing Student Cumulative Course Grades, Attrition, and Satisfaction in Traditional and Virtual Classroom Environments

Аннотация

Higher education institutions are quickly becoming oriented to the benefits of distance education to their long-term interests. However, higher dropout rates continue to trouble distance-learning approaches despite the supposed flexibility and convenience it offers its students. Distance learning can be either synchronous or asynchronous in delivery. The problem addressed in this study is the significantly higher dropout rates of students in distance-learning classrooms as compared to traditional classrooms. Recent technology breakthroughs have enabled a relatively new, previously unfeasible category of distance learning—a synchronous venue using high-speed internet, modern interactive software, webcam and display tools, and computer-based activities and interactions between instructors and students in non-collocated classrooms—referred to as live virtual classrooms. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental study was to compare student outcomes (student performance, satisfaction, and attrition rates) from a synchronous live virtual classroom to outcomes from an equivalent traditional classroom. This was the first comparative study of student outcomes (student performance, satisfaction, and attrition rates) in a live virtual classroom versus a traditional classroom at a major national-level university.