Suspicious minds

Well, one suspicious mind, at least. I've been reading a study from 2007 which claims to demonstrate that students view online tuition unfavourably, compared with face-to-face. 

Price et al. reached their conclusions not by asking students who had experienced both forms of tutorial support to compare them, but by surveying & interviewing students (on the same module) who had chosen one form or the other, then comparing their ratings of tutoring quality.

That seems a reasonable enough approach to take. But it strikes me there are two major shortcomings in this study.

1. No account is taken of the students' reasons for choosing the online or the face-to-face option. In my experience, where students are offered this choice, the online option is taken by two main groups:

• those who are coping with less than ideal study situations - they may have a demanding carer role, long working hours, a disruptive health condition. This situation would be likely to impact negatively on their study experience regardless of the tutorial format.
• those who are reluctant to participate in tutorials at all & see the online version as easier to avoid ('This way, we don't have to go to classes - great!'). More of an opt-out than an opt-in situation.

Failure to take into account the possible distorting effect of factors that make students unable or unwilling to attend face-to-face tutorials weakens the study's conclusions.

2. No questions are raised about one rather startling statistic. Apparently large numbers of students surveyed agreed with the statement 'feedback on students' work is usually only provided in the form of marks or grades'. The average score for this statement (on a scale of 1 - 5) was 2.12 for those in 2002 face-to-face groups & 2.36 for the online groups. In 2003 the levels of agreement were 2.18 & 2.28 respectively. 

I find this quite extraordinary. The major part of OU tutors' contracted hours are spent providing detailed, personalised teaching feedback to students in the form of annotations on their assignment documents & a discursive overall summary. So why were the agreement ratings not zero?

I wonder how much faith can be placed in the testimony of students who seem either not to have noticed this feedback (suggesting a lack of engagement with the learning process) or to have taken a casual approach to completing the survey questionnaire. The study does acknowledge that the online students' disappointment may have stemmed, in part, from unrealistic expectations. It's a pity it didn't also recognise that, on the evidence of this example, the entire findings may be deeply flawed.

I wonder what Elvis would have made of the internet?

[https://twitter.com/InfoPresley]