Online Eductation

Across the United States, online education has become an alternative for many college students working on their graduate and undergraduate degrees. Learners who seek education but weren’t able to attend classes are now able to. However, this continuing change of online education has many people raising questions about the system and its effectiveness. Is online education practically the same as the classroom, or is it just an easy way out?

Although the system may be different, the overall perception of online education is the practically the same or better. A 12 year study done by the Education Department deduced that online education statistically beat face-to-face classroom education. “The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International (Lohr, Study). It allows students to learn from organizing their time and working out problems on their own which students tend to find more appealing and benefit from.

Even though the study by the Education Department showed that online education beat face-to-face learning, certain groups did remarkably worse than others online. Males and students of Hispanic descent were in this category. Females on the other hand were much better at managing their time and completing their homework. According to David Figlio, an economist at Northwestern University, “the time-shifting convenience of the Web made it easier for students to put off viewing the lectures and cram just before the test, a tactic unlikely to produce the best possible results” (Lohr, Second). Online education may be a means of separating the brightest students from the rest.

Whereas online education may not be for all students, it does not lack one on one communication with teachers or students. Through online discussions and chat rooms,...