Final Paper

Zachary Janvier

Saint Leo University

DBA 710

Wiseman, Timothy

March 8, 2021
Introduction

Statistical data of higher education defines how the distance education for traditional academic

courses along with occupation oriented courses are increasing with the passage of time. Due to

this increase, new elements to studies of both grades and retention are introduced. The

identification of this increase has a great impact on student learning and retention, therefore

behaving as a motivation for this study. Over the past 100 years, grading system in the United

States have been an indication of knowledge. Having said that, high school grades are being

utilized by the educators in order to develop a method in American schools to determine

postsecondary opportunities.

To implement on this, the modern society has accepted graduation honors, honors attainment,

and as well as course grades as an indicator of knowledge acquisition in postsecondary

education. According to Stray (2001), the use of grading in schools can be an important

contribution for the industrial revolution and development of factories in future. The first grading

system in higher education was developed by William Farish of Cambridge University in the

year 1972 (Stray, 2001). Also, Farish made fun of the system that was established at that time

with grade A “being the best”. The goal of Farish was to provide awareness to students regarding

the aberration at that time when the instructors had more task to complete. Moreover, with the

increase in demand of higher education, Farish intended to open more classes which would allow

more students to come, hence giving rise to this new sorting system.

As stated by Stray 2001, this was the first grading system which was utilized in the classrooms to

measure student achievement. With the use of grades as an indicator of the level of student

achievement based on studies distinguishing between distance instruction and the typical
classroom instruction. Research analyzing and effectiveness of students studying in distance

education system are offered courses regarding the use of the mail service (Russell, 1999).

Whereas the studies involved correspondence courses included newer technologies, such as

television and video courses, along with a rise in the culture of online educational offerings.

Meanwhile, researchers continued to challenge the effectiveness of learning methods not

delivered in the traditional higher education system.

Now online education has become a major part of the higher education institutions which was

also the aim of this study. Initially, the main focus of the study was to evaluate whether there was

a huge difference between the course grades of participating students in online courses and their

traditional classroom-based counterparts. The second aspect of the study was to sight the

difference between the course retention of participating students, and their traditional classroom-

based counterparts. Having said that, this part emphasizes on modes of online course delivery to

traditional classroom-based instruction (Carmel & Gold, 2007; Russell, 1999). Another purpose

of the study was to decide if any major difference between program retention of students

studying through online courses and those involved in traditional face-to-face courses existed.

The study was proposed in order to spread the knowledge regarding online education and its

effectiveness in providing baccalaureate degree completion opportunities.

The research questions guiding this study were:

1. Is there is a statistically significant difference between students’ grades in online classes and

traditional face-to-face classes?

2. Is there a statistically significant difference between course retention rates in online classes

and traditional face-to-face classes?

3. Is there a statistically significant difference between program retention for students entering

the program enrolled in online classes and students entering the program enrolled in traditional

face-to-face classes?

Research Question 1 Hypothesis

H1: There is a statistically significant difference in course grades of students participating in

online courses and students enrolled in a traditional classroom setting at the 0.05 level of

significance.

Research Question 2 Hypothesis

H2: There is a statistically significant difference in student course retention between students

participating in online courses and students enrolled in face-to-face courses at the 0.05 level of

significance.

Research Question 3 Hypothesis

H3: There is a statistically significant difference in program retention between students who

begin the Technology Administration program in online courses and students who begin in face-

to-face courses at the 0.05 level of significance.

A quantitative, quasi-experimental research design was chosen, in order to study program

retention, course retention and grades in students that were enrolled in Technology

Administration program. The design was selected order to know if there are substantial

differences between the online and face-to-face students, the numerical scores of all the

participants were examined along with the retention rates in both programs and courses in

Technology Administration program.

There were two groups of student population selected, one which was enrolled in online course

and the other in face-to-face- courses. The students in sample were the ones taking Technology

Administration courses. In order to determine the number of students available in face-to-face

and online classes, student enrollment was for all Technology Administration courses in the

program sequence was analyzed. All the students which were enrolled in two-entry level courses

needed for the completion of Technology Administration program were included in the

hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 subsample, these were: TA 300 Evolution and Development of

Technology, and TA 310 Society and 38 Technology.

These courses were offered in both face-to-face and online formats by the university during the

time of study. Two instructors, recognized as A and B were teaching the face-to-face and online

courses. The two courses that fulfilled the below mentioned criteria were selected:

(i) Both the courses are taught by same teacher

(ii) Both the courses were consistently offered in face-to-face and online instruction

(iii) The syllabus for both face-to-face and online sections is same.

The students who were enrolled in Fall semesters for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006

in TA 300 Evolution and Development of Technology course, their data was included in

Hypothesis 3. Only if the course fulfilled the below mentioned criteria was it selected for

incorporation in study:

(i) Student enrollment in the course was an outcome of declaration of the Technology

Administration program major

(ii) The students could complete the program requirements in two or more than two years

according to parameters of the very study.

All the names of students were removed for study purpose.

Quantitative study was used for the purpose of comparing the grades by course, program

retention and course retention of the enrolled students in connectional face-to-face and online

Technology Administration program at Washburn University. The archival data was used from

the student system of online and face-to-face classes of two distinct courses at Washburn

University. A sample comprising of 885 students who were enrolled in conventional face-to-face

and online courses was recognized to answer the Research Question 1. This sample had students

in fall semesters of programs for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 in face-to-face and

online classes.

There were two teachers with the duty for simultaneous instruction of face-to-face and online

classes for the specified period of time analyzed. A two-factor analysis of variance was utilized

for the analysis of potential difference in the course grades because of delivery method (face-to-

face and online), dependent variables, instructor (instructors A and B), and the potential

interaction amongst the 2 independent variables (Research Question 1) (Research Questions 2

and 3) Chi-square test to find the differences amongst the proportions was utilized for the

analysis of program retention and course.

SPSS software version 16.0 was used to conduct the data analysis for the testing of all

hypothesis. An automatic analysis of all statistical measures was provided by this software

system. A two-factor analysis of variance was utilized for the analysis of a potential difference in

delivery method (face-to-face and online), potential interaction amid the two factors and

potential difference in instructor (instructors A and B), this was used to address the research

question 1. Salkind (2008) related the aspect when the difference between levels of any factor is

revealed by variance analysis as main effect.

Three F statistics were produced by this analysis: to decide if the main affect for delivery affects

the difference in student’s grades between online classes and classroom based classes, main

effect or the instructor, and for the interaction between delivery and instructor. In order to answer

the second and third research question, Chi-square testing was chosen. The basis/reason for

choosing chi-square testing was detection of if a particular frequency distribution is same if it

occurs by chance (Salkind, 2008). If the chi-square value which is obtained is greater than the

critical value, then this shows that there is enough evidence to accept a research hypothesis as

true. For second research question, chi-square test for differences between proportions carried

out analysis of course retention of face-to-face and online students towards semester end. For the

third Research Question, a chi-square test for differences between proportions basically analyzed

program retention which compared students who started the program in face-to-face section with

those who began in the online section of TA 300.

For the first hypothesis, the sample was based on 815 students who were enrolled in face-to-face

and in online courses at the university. A two-factor analysis of variance was used to analyze the

visible difference in course grades resulting from the method of delivery (face-to-face and

online), the potential difference resulting from the characteristics of the instructor and the

potential interaction between the two independent variables. The calculation of mean and

standard deviation were carried out using delivery type and instructor. No significant difference

was seen in the mean grades by delivery between face-to-face and online instructions as well as

no difference in the mean grade for difference in instructor. So looking at the results of the two-

factor ANOVA, it can be seen that there was no effect on grades due to the method of delivery

and the difference of instructor. So clearly there was no significant interaction between the two

factors and so the research hypothesis was not supported.

For the second hypothesis, 885 students enrolled in online and face-to-face courses were taken as

the sample. The hypothesis testing started off by analyzing the available contingency data and it

was then organized with course selection and retention as two variables. Data was input in the

column titled ‘retained’ only when a final grade was reported for a student or otherwise those

who were coded as withdraw, those were not included in this column. In order to observe if a

particular distribution of frequencies is similar to that if it were to occur by chance, Chi-square

analysis was used. The findings showed that there was no statistically significant difference

between retention of students enrolled in face-to-face courses in comparison to those enrolled in

online courses. Moreover, it was observed that 93.92% (294/313) of the online students were

retained, compared to 90.89% (519/571) of the face-to-face students. The research hypothesis

was not supported.

For the third hypothesis, 249 students enrolled in face-to-face and online courses were taken as

the sample and the hypothesis testing was initiated by analyzing the contingency data which was

organized into two variables: course selection and program retention. Data if the students

fulfilled the requirements for the course successfully, then data was input in the retention column

otherwise for those who couldn’t do so, were counted in the non-retained column. Again Chi-

square analysis was used and the results showed that there was no statistically significant

difference between the rate of retention for students who took courses online in comparison to

those who took those courses face-to-face. Moreover the results showed that 91.57% (163/178)

of students who began in online courses were retained compared to 92.96% (66/71) of students

who began the TA program in face-to-face courses. The research hypothesis was not supported.
Conclusion

To sum up, online teaching is increasingly becoming a strategy that is ideal for higher education

institutions as through this they are able to provide instructions to their students who are not able

to attend lectures due to shortage of time, are restricted by distances or simply who do not feel

like attending those typical classroom-based university classes. Moreover, online learning can

help these higher education institutions in expanding geographically which means students from

different areas can easily access the ongoing lectures and so stay connected to each other.

institutions have been utilizing distance education since a long time but it hasn’t been so long

that Internet took over everything and is now being used as a television, for video courses and

what not! It is increasingly being used as a major source of delivering information from one

place to the other. This has both challenged and changed the opinions about traditional campus-

based instructions.

Various studies have been designed with the purpose of examining is online those students

learning online show the same academic performance as those who are learning through campus-

based classes or lectures. This study was carried out to see the difference between performance

and it clearly shows that no statistically significant differences were noticed in the grades earned

by those studying online and those taking face-to-face courses. Unlike previous studies, this

current study clearly showed that there was no difference between the rate of retention among

online students and traditional face-to-face students as in both of them showed the same rate of

retention.