Characteristics and Performance of Students in an Online Section of Business Statistics

Dutton, John         (919) 515-6948

Associate Professor

Business Management

North Carolina State University

Abstract (up to 200 words):
This session would be based on a working paper. The abstract of the paper is: Abstract: Courses taught completely via the internet have become increasingly common over the last several years. There has been a great deal of speculation about the motives and characteristics of the students who take such courses, as well as about the success of the courses as vehicles of instruction. In this paper we compare students in online and lecture sections of a business statistics class both taught by the same instructor. With regard to course content, assignments and exams, the two sections were virtually identical except that students in the online section did not attend the regular lectures. Online students came to campus for an initial organization session and took the three intra-semester exams and the final exam together with the lecture students. The data are based on class grades for approximately 40 online and 140 lecture students during the fall semester of 2001. We also have collected demographic data and students’ responses to two surveys, one distributed at the beginning and the other at the end of the semester. The first survey asked students for information regarding their level of preparedness and reasons for preferring the online or the lecture section. In the second survey students were asked to evaluate their experience and degree of satisfaction with the course. We employ comparative descriptive statistics, regression analysis and standard hypothesis tests to identify significant differences between the online and lecture sections with regard to performance and satisfaction with the course as well as motivation and preparedness for taking an online course. The comparison of performance levels is a continuation of similar work we did with a computer science course.

Session type:
Short presentation (20 minutes)

Time slots:
C9 - Fr 4:30 - 5:15

Room:
Augusta B

Last Modified September 9, 2003
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