http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303942404577534691028046050.htmlTapping Technology to Keep Lid on Tuition
by David Wessel
Wall Street Journal
July 19, 2012
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In a carefully crafted, foundation-funded experiment that has received less attention than it deserves, Ithaka S+R, a higher-education think tank, enticed 605 undergraduates at six public-university campuses in New York and Maryland to agree to be assigned randomly to one of two courses. Half took a conventional introductory statistics course that met three hours a week. The other half took a computer-assisted course that met once a week and relied on an interactive, online statistics course developed by Carnegie Mellon University's Online Learning Initiative.
To compare outcomes, researchers had students take a standardized statistics test and a final exam that had some of the same questions.
The statistically sound result: Students in the online course did just as well as those who took the conventional course. No better, no worse.
"The most important single result of our study: It calls into question the position of the skeptic who says, 'I don't want to try this because it will hurt my students,' " says one of the study's architects, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Linda Cooper, a veteran stats professor at Maryland's Towson University who taught a computer-assisted course in the study, was among the skeptics. "I walked away with a much more positive outlook for online courses," she says, as long as they are well designed ("not all are," she notes) and include regular in-person sessions (as opposed to courses taught exclusively online).
She says most students came away with a "deeper understanding" than she had seen in conventional courses, although she found some less-motivated students expected her to cover everything during the one in-person class each week.
Surveys by the researchers found online students spent about 25% less time on the course—both in and out of the classroom and on and off the computer—than the others for the same test results. Online students tended to be less satisfied with the course, perhaps because the Carnegie-Mellon course lacks the entertainment of videogames while in-person professors leaven lectures with jokes and anecdotes.
At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, teacher Bonnie Kegan found one big advantage was the timely feedback the software gave by tracking students' answers to questions posed as they worked through each lesson. "You can drill down and see what questions they're missing," she says.
So how much can this really save? In a back-of-the-envelope calculation, Ithaka researchers estimated that—once the software investment is made—hybrid online courses could cost half what conventional classes do because fewer teachers are needed. That makes professors uneasy: Ms. Cooper, a full-time professor, says it's "definitely a worry." Ms. Kegan, an adjunct, taught twice as many students in the experiment but got twice the pay.
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The report "Interactive Learning Online at Public Universities: Evidence from Randomized Trials" is at
http://www.sr.ithaka.org/research-p...-universities-evidence-randomized-trials
