Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning

4.6 million students in the United States (1 out of every 4) took a college-level online course at the start of the 2008/9 academic year. That figure rose to 5.6 million students in 2009/10, according to the eighth annual Sloan Survey of Online Learning, a report which uses data from more than 2,500 colleges and universities in the United States.

The importance of face-to-face lectures for students’ academic achievement has been demonstrated in previous economics studies such as Schmidt (1983); Romer (1993); Durden and Ellis (1995); Dolton, Marcenaro and Navarro (2003); Martins and Walker (2006) and Cohn and Johnson (2006). Therefore, it should be a priority to establish how online lectures compare; as many students are already learning online to some extent (as indicated by the Sloan Survey). A recent NBER paper by Figlio, Rush and Lin (2010) investigates the issue; details below.

Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning
David Figlio (figlio@northwestern.edu), Mark Rush and Lu Yin
No 16089, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents the first experimental evidence on the effects of live versus internet media of instruction. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an internet setting, where all other factors (e.g., instruction, supplemental materials) were the same. Counter to the conclusions drawn by a recent U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis of non-experimental analyses of internet instruction in higher education, we find modest evidence that live-only instruction dominates internet instruction. These results are particularly strong for Hispanic students, male students, and lower-achieving students. We also provide suggestions for future experimentation in other settings.

JEL-codes: I20 I23
Date: 2010-06

Student Demand for Streaming Lecture Video: Empirical Evidence from Undergraduate Economics Classes

This is the title of a recent paper by Nicholas Flores and Scott J. Savage in the International Review of Economics Education. The abstract is below. For context, one should note that 4.6 million students in the United States (1 out of every 4) took a college-level online course at the start of the 2008/9 academic year. That figure has risen to 5.6 million students in 2009/10, according to the (recent) eighth annual Sloan Survey of Online Learning, a report which uses data from more than 2,500 colleges and universities in the United States.

The importance of face-to-face lectures for students’ academic achievement has been demonstrated in previous economics studies such as Schmidt (1983); Romer (1993); Durden and Ellis (1995); Dolton, Marcenaro and Navarro (2003); Martins and Walker (2006) and Cohn and Johnson (2006). It should be an immediate priority to establish how online lectures compare; as some amount of online learning may be inevitable in the future. Finally, another possibility is that the availability of online materials may discourage attendance. According to the results of a MIT survey, the penalty to not going to a lecture is reduced by the presence of online learning materials (Clay and Breslow, 2006).

Abstract from Flores and Savage Paper: Real-time lectures recorded on video and streamed over the Internet are a useful supplement to non-classroom learning. However, because recording confines the instructor to the podium, the classroom experience is diminished when there is less social interaction. This study uses choice experiment data to estimate economics students’ willingness to pay for streaming lecture video and instructor movement away from the podium. Results show a divide between students who like the flexibility of catching up on missed classes with video and students who do not. For this former group, video enhances the learning experience and students are willing to pay an additional $90 per course for video. An important source of streaming lecture video’s value to students is its impact on performance. Knowledge equation estimates show a positive correlation between students’ use of video and their cumulative final grade.

Child Driven Education TED Talk

This TED talk by Sugato Mitra  details his experiments with the use of computers given to children in empoverished areas for the purpose of unaided learning. Students work with web-enabled computers to learn a variety of tasks. In more sophisticated experiments they interact with online facilitators in large self-organising web networks. His studies show very high rates of learning among the children even in the most stripped-down versions.