COMPARISON OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE UNDER TWO TEACHING METHODS: FACE TO FACE AND ONLINE

Damitha Bandara
Albany State University

Danush Kanchana Wijekularathna
Troy University

ABSTRACT

Over the last ten years, the number of online courses offered by colleges and universities
have increased and improved quite noticeably. A significant number of universities now offer
undergraduate and graduate degree programs online. The trend in higher education is to offer
more online courses because of the increase in student demand. Although on-line courses are
carefully designed and competently delivered, it is unclear whether student performance will be
better employing the face-to-face teaching method. Most studies show that there is no significant
difference between online and face-to-face in terms of performance. However, in few of the
studies, it is shown that face-to-face students perform better in comparison to online students.
Thus, this study compares the student performance relating to two teaching modes: face-to-face
and online to ascertain the most effective way of delivering the course material to students,
especially for the courses that required analytical and quantitative skills. Results show that online
students performed better with respect to essay type questions while face-to-face students
performed better with respect to questions that required analytical skills.

Keywords: Education, online teaching, face-to-face delivery, comparison study