A study of student satisfaction in selected online and face-to-face college of business courses at a Southeastern United States university

This study was designed to examine undergraduate and graduate student satisfaction levels with selected online and face-to-face business courses. One hundred and eighty undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in selected business courses in one department in a college of business at a university located in the Southeastern United States comprised the population for this study. The students or participants were enrolled in one of nine selected online and face-to-face business courses taught by three instructors during the fall 2003 semester.; A survey was developed using the five dimensions of service quality. These dimensions were used as organizational categories for the items on the researcher-developed Student Satisfaction Survey. The instrument was deemed valid by a panel of experts and tested for reliability using students enrolled in two education courses, one online section and one face-to-face section. Then, the participants in the selected business courses were asked to complete the survey electronically at the end of the fall 2003 semester.; The findings were based on quantitative data collected from 118 useable surveys completed by students from the selected business courses. An analysis of the data indicated that students were just as satisfied with the instruction received in the online courses as in the face-to-face courses and that there was no difference in the level of student satisfaction expressed by graduate and undergraduate students relative to the instruction received in the online or face-to-face courses. However, there were significant differences in the level of student satisfaction when both student classification (graduate or undergraduate) and instructional delivery method (online or face-to-face) were considered.; Overall, students seem to be satisfied with online instruction. However, institutions and instructors must be attentive to the issues related to student satisfaction. Additional studies related to student satisfaction are warranted and would greatly add to the literature available.