Online Learning Efficacy Research Database

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an 18-month-long course in Family Health. The course was offered in two modalities, distance education and face-to-face learning. Dependent variables were as follows: self-regulation of learning, procrastination, the perception of self-efficacy, and academic performance. The course was attended by 27 health professionals (i.e., physicians, nurses, and dentists) working in the Brazilian Unified Health System. The investigation followed a quasi-experimental design. Participants in the two modalities achieved similar academic performance; and globally no statistically significant differences were found regarding the study variables. Findings, notwithstanding their importance for professional training in health, are preliminary and further research is needed on the effectiveness of training modalities distance education and face-to-face learning (e.g., focus groups, interviews, online monitoring). The educational implications of this study are discussed and analyzed considering specificities and differences of each modality. 
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The objective of this study was to assess if online teaching delivery produces comparable student test performance as the traditional face-to-face approach irrespective of academic aptitude. This study involves a quasi-experimental comparison of student performance in an undergraduate health science statistics course partitioned in two ways. The first partition involves one group of students taught with a traditional face-to-face classroom approach and the other through a completely online instructional approach. The second partition of the subjects categorized the academic aptitude of the students into groups of higher and lower academically performing based on their assignment grades during the course. Controls that were placed on the study to reduce the possibility of confounding variables were: the same instructor taught both groups covering the same subject information, using the same assessment methods and delivered over the same period of time. The results of this study indicate that online teaching delivery is as effective as a traditional face-to-face approach in terms of producing comparable student test performance but only if the student is academically higher performing. For academically lower performing students, the online delivery method produced significantly poorer student test results compared to those lower performing students taught in a traditional face-to-face environment. 
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