A study shows that interest in online courses has remained flat in recent years.
When Cedrick Alexander was reviewing the courses he needed in order to complete his journalism degree at the University of Alabama, he found that some classes that fit his schedule were only offered online.
"If I would have had the option, I would have probably gone with
in-class options," says Alexander, who is in the process of finishing
his degree. "The reason I took online courses was because they were the
only ones available, [and] with time commitments, they worked for me."
Alexander notes that there were some benefits to taking classes
online, beyond the flexibility. "Online classes make you more
accountable for your learning, instead of relying on guidance or
instruction," he says. "But I definitely appreciated the in-class
experience more just because it allowed me to have more interaction with
instructors and students."
[Find out why these students chose online education.]
According to a recent report from Eduventures, a higher education
research and consulting firm, which surveyed 1,500 U.S. adults between
the ages of 18 and 70, a majority of prospective students prefer the
in-class experience compared to an online-only or majority-online
course.
In fact, just 38 percent of respondents noted that they prefer online
courses, which is up only 1 percent from 2006. But, whether it is due
to the convenience of online courses or increased options for online
classes, the report shows that while adults prefer in-class instruction,
28 percent of respondents are enrolled in an online course, up from 18
percent in 2006.
"The good news is that there is still a significant gap between
preference and participation," the report's authors write. "The bad news
is that the gap is shrinking, and cautions that unless online delivery
develops a broader value proposition, long-term growth may prove
elusive."
The fact that adult preferences for online courses have remained
relatively stagnant between 2006 and 2012 may be due to the lack of
information people have regarding the technological advancements in
education, notes Coursera cofounder and Stanford University professor Andrew Ng.
"For a long time, online education has had a mixed reputation," Ng
says. "A couple years ago, it was challenging to find high quality
courses. Even today, many people do not know about the high quality
offerings that are available to them."
[Consider this before you pay for an online degree.]
For Arizona State University
graduate student Megan Goodrich, online courses have been a prominent
fixture in her academic career: She took nearly 20 online courses
during high school and as an undergraduate at Florida State University.
"Online classes are more acceptable than they were a couple years
ago," Goodrich says. "I had to self-teach myself through these courses,
though. You're able to get ahead [in online courses] but I don't feel
like I was learning. If you're going to school to learn, go to class and
don't take it online."
Goodrich's assessment of online courses compared to in-class courses
aligns with what the majority of respondents noted in the Eduventures
study. According to the report, only 7 percent of adults view online
delivery as superior to in-class delivery, up from 1 percent in 2006.
"Both ratios are low in absolute terms, and reiterate that to date
online higher education fundamentally embodied convenience rather than
broader value-add," the report's authors write, "but the improved ratio
may be an encouraging sign that online sophistication is increasing."
[See how online learning outcomes are similar to classroom results.]
Coursera's Ng says that many online courses already rival that of
large classrooms and, in fact, a "website can be made to be much more
interactive than a large lecture hall.
"For a 400 student course, the online experience is that every week,
students watch two hours of video of me lecturing and then they do
homework," he notes. "The live classroom turns out to be only slightly
better. With a class of 400 students, there really isn't that much
one-on-one interaction with students."
Although perceptions and preferences among adults lean heavily toward
in-class instruction, Ng believes the growth of massive open online
courses, provided by companies such as Coursea, edX, and Udacity, will
change outlooks in the long term.
[Discover free options for online education programs.]
Coursera alone has 33 member schools, including Stanford, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania,
offering free online courses, and the company recently announced that
it passed 1 million student enrollments. Having top-ranked universities
offer courses through the online delivery model will ultimately have a
strong influence on adults' perspectives on online education, Ng says.
"We all trust prestigious universities to have high standards," he
notes. "From a student perspective, if you go online and take a class
through Princeton, there's something reassuring that it's a Princeton
course. When you put on a résumé that you took a course from a Princeton
professor, that means something."
Source : usnews.com