A Comparison of the Performance of Online versus Traditional On-Campus Earth Science Students on Identical Exams

In this paper I compare the performance of online versus traditional on-campus students on identical exams in an earth science class. The number of college level distance learning classes offered online continues to increase as they offer greater scheduling flexibility to students, they appeal to students who like to work independently, and allow colleges to increase enrollment without building new classrooms. Hillsborough Community College (HCC) is a two year urban community college in Tampa, Florida. An online earth science class was first offered in Fall 2005. Most students enrolled in Earth Science are non-science majors fulfilling a science requirement for graduation and both online and on-campus classes average about 30 students. As this is a traditional earth science course it covers topics in geology, oceanography, meteorology, and astronomy. This material is divided into four units with an exam at the end of each unit. The exams are short answer, predominantly multiple choice with diagram identification and contain about eighty to ninety questions. All classes used the same study guide and textbook and all of the classes in this study were given exactly the same exams. This process was repeated over four semesters from Fall term 2005 to Spring term 2007. Statistical analysis comparing exam grades indicates that there was no significant difference in student performance on exams between the online and on-campus students.