Online Learning Efficacy Research Database

Pain is a common experience for hospitalized children; however, nursing students are often not adequately trained in pediatric pain management. Innovative teaching strategies, such as e-learning, have been employed for instructing students, however success of these platforms has not been quantitatively measured. This study compared students' knowledge and skill performance following a researcher-designed pain management program administered with three teaching strategies: traditional face-to-face, e-learning, or blended learning. Undergraduate nursing students in Taiwan (N = 296) randomly assigned to one of the teaching strategies participated. Knowledge of pain management, and pain management skills were quantified. A subjective assessment of attitudes towards learning found no significant difference between groups. Knowledge of pediatric pain management did not differ significantly between groups (p = 0.36). A 15-item objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) measured the competency of pain management skills; scores were not significantly different, regardless of teaching strategy (p = 0.70). Traditional face-to-face teaching was as effective as both innovative strategies. Evaluating students’ skills following a pain management program with an OSCE provided a quantitative assessment of competency. Innovative strategies for teaching pediatric pain management could be a cost-effective way to provide flexible learning opportunities for nursing students who are distant from educational institutions. 
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This study compared students’ expectations, perceptions, and grades in two undergraduate technology management courses at a university in the United States. One course was a technical course taught by a single instructor in an online course section and in a face-to-face section, and the second was a nontechnical course taught by a different instructor in an online and in a face-to-face section. Different concerns were evident between online and face-to-face students and between those in a technical or nontechnical section of a course. For the technical course sections, grades were higher in the online section. 
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This observational study adds to a small number of college-specific studies comparing student performance in online and face-to-face versions of the same course. It also complements more large-scale college-based studies that compare the delivery formats across courses, disciplines, and institutions. Using descriptive statistics and the chi-square and ANOVA methods, the author examined comparative educational outcomes by measuring student performance and key factors of student performance in the same mandatory professional communications course taught simultaneously in an online and face-to-face format over a 5-semester time frame. The findings are consistent with other comparative studies that have established that in comparison to face-to-face students, online students are generally more academically prepared; more mature; and more commonly full-time employed, fluent in the English language, and female. Similar to other studies, the factors of gender, age, education, and writing proficiency are significant indicators of student achievement; the factors of employment hours, native language, and direct/indirect entry are not, which shows some discrepancy with other studies. In terms of overall student performance, online and face-to-face-component students earned similar grades and had similar completion and retention rates. This finding does not concur with a number of studies that show that online students are significantly less likely to successfully complete courses than their face-to-face counterparts. Course type (mandatory, elective, remedial, regular), advancement in a course of study (lower year, upper year), and delivery mode choice (fully online vs. mix of online and face-to-face) are probed as explanatory variables for differences in findings. 
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Blended learning, a combination of face-to-face and computer-assisted pedagogy, is gaining acceptance at universities as an alternative learning experience. Modern technology has given faculty new ways to incorporate active learning and increase student engagement in their courses. Although the broad history of technology enhanced coursework has demonstrated that student learning is usually very comparable to what occurs in traditional coursework, recent studies focusing specifically on blended learning in totally redesigned classes report positive results. Were those positive results due to the online blending or to the redesign of the class? To answer this question and other limitations and challenges in past studies, the authors present their unique research that measures learning in a blended undergraduate management information systems course where identical classes were compared, one being all face-to-face and one being one-third online. By varying only course modality, this research answers the question of whether blended learning is a superior learning environment in an undergraduate MIS class, a second-level MIS class covering ERP, business processes, databases, advanced spreadsheets, and data analytics. Collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, the authors use a critical realism lens to create a mechanism for learning. Quantitative data, analyzed by multiple regression models and qualitative data, analyzed by content analysis lead to the outcome that learning is comparable to traditional coursework, grade-wise, but students prefer face-to-face class time. It also reveals that self-regulatory skills are evident, confirming that blended learning can aid in the construction of learning. 
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With the proliferation of internet technology, the E-learning has become an essential method and new epitome that is widely used and implemented by educational institutions across the globe. The main objective of the current survey was to study the impact of E-learning on the students' academic performance. It was a facility-based and quasi-experimental research design that carried out in Najran University- college of nursing during the period from January to August, 2019. By adopting a purposive sampling technique, 80 under-graduate nursing students (40 experimental group + 40 as controls) that aged 21-24 years old had been recruited to participate in the current survey. Final exam results and a self-administered questionnaire were used for collecting data. The findings revealed that the mean scores obtained by students in the final exam by the E-learning group (Experimental) is statistically significantly higher than those for the traditional group (controls) (t=3.45, df=37, P value= 0.002). Additionally, the results showed that the mean of the students' overall satisfaction with the traditional face-to-face lectures in the control group was 6.26, while the mean of the students' overall satisfaction with E-learning in the experimental group was 8.74. The difference between students' attitudes was significant (P = 0.015) in favor of the experimental group. The key findings of the present study show a significant difference in learning outcomes beside positive attitudes between online and traditional learners which can be a viable alternative learning method for higher education. It also contributes to the current literature in the area of online instruction and E-learning 
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Information and technology has now become the key to academic success of students at various levels of education. Blended Learning strategy is viewed as resourceful and innovative instructional strategy which can elegantly integrate traditional instructional convention method and e-learning method. The purpose of the research work was to study the effectiveness of blended learning instructional strategy on social science achievement of Class-XI students and to observe the difference between the students taught by blended learning strategy and face-to-face traditional instructional strategy. Experimental method was adopted for the present study. The researcher has employed the tools, viz. achievement test in economics and blended learning instructional package for this experimental study. The findings of the study reveal that the blended learning strategy is more effective than the face-to-face traditional instructional method for the academic achievement. The study found that blended learning strategy has improved the academic achievement of students in posttest. 
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This study compares four learning environments: face-to-face learning (F2F), fully e-learning (EL), blended learning (BL), and flipped classroom (FC) with respect to students' learning performance. Moreover, this present research studies changes in perceived flexibility, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy beliefs of students, and the interaction effects in these student variables on learning performance. Two learning environment design elements: (1) lectures (2) group discussions building on guiding questions, were manipulated to create the four learning environments. Third-year undergraduate students (n = 106), enrolled in the “Animal and Human Physiology” course at CanTho University (Vietnam), were randomly assigned to one of the four learning environments. The results suggest a significant positive differential effect on learning performance when studying in a FC and BL setting. No significant interaction effects could be observed regarding changes in perceived flexibility, intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. However, significant differences between learning conditions were observed in perceived flexibility. Analysis of focus group data corroborate the finding that students experience more flexibility in time and place when studying in FC, BL and EL environments. In addition, students in a FC environment reflect significantly larger positive changes in their self-efficacy. But, the qualitative data show how positive perceptions about flexibility, motivation and self-efficacy are often cancelled out by negative perceptions. 
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Low-tech active learning (AL) exercises in face-to-face (F2F) undergraduate biomechanics courses improve student learning vs. lecture alone. This study compared learning of biomechanics concepts with AL implemented in two course formats (hybrid: HB vs. F2F). Additional aims were to investigate if student perceptions of learning epistemology and learning factors were related to course format. Students (n = 110) in four introductory biomechanics courses (two F2F, two HB) completed the 24-question Biomechanics Concept Inventory (BCI) at the beginning and the end of the course to determine their learning of biomechanical concepts. An additional eight questions were given with the post-test to determine student perceptions of the AL exercises and their epistemology of learning. Learning in the HB format was equivalent to the F2F course format when both implement AL in these students. Student perceptions of AL were generally positive and learning scores consistent with previous research on AL in biomechanics. There were mixed results of the effect of course format with one significant difference of three ratings of the nature of learning biomechanics and one significant difference of four ratings of AL by students. These results should be replicated and potential interactions with student perceptions and characteristics explored. 
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Many earlier studies assessed virtual vs. traditional learning outcomes. The majority of them had two limitations. (1) learners self-selection of virtual classes, and (2) the lack of exams proctoring. It has been stated that these factors give more opportunities of unrealistic elevation of learning outcomes of virtual classes over the traditional ones. This study is of comparative corpus-based nature applied on 1324 male students of Medicine enrolled in Joint First Year Program (JFYP) at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) in the first semesters of the academic years (2017-2018) and (2018-2019). Participants of this study were given English classification test before commencing their JFYP. In the first semester of the academic year (2017-2018), 624 students were taught English in traditional classes by the English Language Center (ELC) at UQU. The other 700 students studied English through virtual classes by TeachCast with Oxford via Eleutian platform. Then, all participants sat for final exams by the end of their first semesters. Comparing the participants’ grade in these two tests is meant to (1) test the claims of the earlier studies, (2) reveal the impact of English instruction by the ELC at UQU and (3) disclose whether the English learning outcomes of controlled virtual classes surpass the traditional classes’ or not. Findings of this study indicated that the learning outcomes of virtual classes significantly surpassed the traditional classes although the affecting factors stated by earlier studies were eliminated. Then, the study recommendations were suggested. 
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Since interaction provides the opportunity for students to share their ideas, thoughts, comments and feelings with their peers and teacher, it can be claimed that it is an integral component of learning. The present study applied the Sinclair and Coulthard’s interaction (IRF) (1975) model on the English learners of two traditional and virtual classes in order to investigate the differences between their writing scores in these two classes on the one hand, and the extent to which the IRF structure occurs in these two classes on the other hand. For this purpose, 79 and 20 intermediate level EFL learners were selected from the virtual and traditional classes of Payame Noor University (PNU). They were given the pre-test at the beginning and post-test after eight sessions of the same treatment in both classes by the same instructor. Their pre- and post-test scores were compared. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the participants’ post-test scores in two classes in terms of three components of the intended six components of the five-paragraph essay. This study concluded that the participants in the virtual class performed better than their peers in the traditional one. Moreover, the number of interactions between the participants and teacher was more in the virtual class. Since the effect of interaction between the students and teacher on better performance and learning was shown in this study, other teachers can take into consideration the importance of interaction as well as technology for better teaching-learning process. 
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