The promotive interactions and positive interdependence facilitated by cooperative learning activities offer opportunities for students to get to know each other and engage deeply with the course content.

The repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) suggested the participants in the asynchronous condition had greater gains in abacus knowledge, but the proximity of the p-value (p=.051) to the customary threshold of .05 makes it difficult to use the p-value to draw conclusions regarding the statistical significance of this difference. Participants reported approximately the same levels of engagement or satisfaction in both conditions.

Lopez and Romantic said that many of the students turning to distance-only degree programs are already statistically less likely to graduate—low-income students, and those with jobs or caretaking responsibilities. Lopez said that 55 percent of the 2015–16 SNHU cohort included in the IPEDS data were Pell Grant recipients.

“Many of the learners SNHU serves face unique challenges including full-time jobs, family responsibilities like raising children or caring for loved ones, and other commitments while pursuing their degree part-time,” she wrote. “These factors often impact their pace or otherwise extend the time it takes for many of our learners to graduate.”

Learning Skills Journey Tool

For example, in its literature review, the report identified as a key theme the importance of meaningful interaction between students and faculty members. It said a lack of sufficient interaction “is likely online education’s Achilles’ heel.”

Net Neutrality and its Implications to Online Learning

Boosting Faculty Buy-In for Online Learning

This database is a searchable resource of academic studies on the learning outcomes of online and/or hybrid education in comparison to face-to-face environments.

Questions on Quality of Online Learning

#3: Online learning is “less than.”

Staggered Versus All-At-Once Content Release in Massive Open Online Courses: Evaluating a Natural Experiment