A quantitative study of university online and on-campus statistics courses and student achievement

Education via the Internet is a relatively new concept. In 1993 there was no World Wide Web. Therefore, offering online courses was still in its infancy when measured against the long history of the education system. While many studies have been conducted concerning courses developed for Internet use, few of these studies have involved mathematics. The purpose of this study was to look at the same statistics courses offered online and on-campus that were taught by the same instructor over five quarters. Quantitative Methods was a subsequent course to statistics and was also considered. The intent was to look at student achievement in online and on-campus courses, as well as looking at differences in student achievement according to gender and race. The statistics showed that students in the online classes performed better than students on-campus. The research showed that GPA and age were the two statistically significant independent variables. This added to the body of knowledge concerning mathematics courses offered on the Internet.