ONLINE or FACE-TO-FACE Learning...Which is Which?

Continuing Education and Knowledge Retention:
A Comparison of Online and Face-to-Face Deliveries
Connie Schardt
Duke University
Julie Garrison
Grand Valley State University

This paper is all about the comparison of online learning and face-to-face learning. In our current situation today it has been said that online learning is more effective than those who still use the old school education which is face-to-face but I hadn’t really found one research that validates the said claim not until I found this research which was posted by my classmate on our discussion thread in research.

Face-to-face discussion also known to us as education 2.0 is a learning style which limits the students learning to the learning of its teachers therefore learning happens in four corners of the classroom. People say that this kind of teaching strategy is obsolete since we are in the age of technology which means sky is the limit. With such claims that stated above I asked myself. If education 2.0 is obsolete then why does almost every teacher that I have known still uses this strategy? Luckily I was able to attend the Philippine youth congress in information technology (y4it 2009) held at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus last September 8-11 2009 and two of the speakers discussed this matters. Mr. Noel Feria discussed the difference of the “obsolete” education 2.0 and education 3.0. He said that education 3.0 is not widely implemented because it has no clear framework yet. He was asked how this education 3.0 works and unfortunately he hasn’t given any clear answer to the question. While the other speaker Prof. Rommel Feria a faculty member of the University of the Philippines Department of Computer Science directly said that “teachers are afraid that their students may surpass them” when asked why education 3.0 is not widely implemented.

Online discussion on the other hand also known as education 3.0 is a learning strategy wherein students are not required to go to school. They are given requirements to be accomplished and given the freedom of how are they going to learn it themselves of course by using the resources that are usually on the net. Teachers do not limit their students to know what they also know. Students may meet their teachers face=to-face only for consultation purposes. Talks about the effectiveness of the online discussion are still on a debate. They said that education 3.0 is more effective than education 2.0 because information nowadays doubles every second and one teacher cannot accommodate all. The main concept of education 3.0 is “search for new knowledge and acquire and share new knowledge in and from your classmates” this may be their way of at list maximizing the knowledge that can be learned. Not limiting the source of knowledge to one person only (the teacher) education 3.0 encourages everyone to search for knowledge and acquire knowledge that their classmate searched in this case everyone is the source of knowledge.

If you try and compare the definitions or overviews given above you’ll most probably say that education 3.0 is more effective over education 2.0 but do you have raw data? Do you have survey result to validate your claims? This study aims to do such thing by comparing the knowledge acquired by those using the education 3.0 and 2.0 or in this paper called DE or distance education and CE for continuing education respectively. The authors have given three assessments namely the Pre-test, Post-test, 6 month Post-test to compare if which of the two educational system is more effective.

This study was designed to determine if there is a difference between learning retention for students taking a continuing education course in the classroom compared to taking the same course through distance education. Students were given three assessments to determine their baseline knowledge of the topic, what they learned immediately after the course, and what they retained six months after the course. Pooled data from those assessments showed that there was no statistical difference in the scores of the two groups of students, leading the authors to conclude that neither delivery method is better than the other.

The result:

Seventy-two professional librarians enrolled in the course during 2004. Fifty-six librarians completed the demographic survey and at least one of the pre- or post-tests. Fourteen librarians completed the course but did not submit any surveys or assessments, despite repeated requests for compliance. Two librarians dropped the course and did not finish the work.

The two groups, continuing education (CE) and distance education (CE), were similar in terms of type of library (academic or hospital) and primary responsibilities (reference or education). The groups differed in terms of age and experience. The CE students were older with more years of experience. All (100%) of the CE students were 36 years old or older, compared to 64% of the distance education students. Eighty two percent of the CE students had 10 years or more of library experience, compared to only 29% of the distance education students. As expected the CE students reported a strong preference (82%) for traditional classroom instruction; while only 61% of distanced education students reported this preference. When asked about reasons for taking an online course, both groups indicated that convenience of not traveling, timeliness of the topic, and working at own pace as the most important factors.

Seventeen students from the traditional face-to-face class and 21 students from the distance education course completed the first post-test. As indicated in Figure 1, there was a significant decline in the number of students completing responses to the subsequent tests. Ultimately, data from all assessments were available for only 10 CE and 11 DE students.

When comparing the scores of only those who completed all assessments, the DE students averaged over 10 points higher than the CE group in each test. Both groups showed a significant improvement from the pre-test to the post-test (CE increased by 57%, DE increased by 21%). As expected, average student scores declined from the first post-test to the second post-test (CE decreased by 14%, DE decreased by 11%.), although they remained higher than pre-test levels. Based on the raw numbers, it appeared that students in the DE group came into the classroom with a greater knowledge of the subject and retained more knowledge six months after the course had ended.

Due to the small number of students who completed all assessments, the data from all the participants was re-analyzed and adjusted for missingness. When the data was recalculated using a mixed model, with fixed effects for time (three levels) and group (classroom and distance) and time/group interaction, the adjusted differences were not statistically significant. Considering all the data, the study showed that the distance education group and face-to-face groups had no difference in level of knowledge retention

Source: http://www.eblip4.unc.edu/papers/Schardt.pdf