HOW DO ONLINE STUDENTS DIFFER FROM LECTURE STUDENTS?
Quote: "In this paper we extend and broaden our earlier investigation to address two additional questions in online education. The first question asks who is likely to take online classes. It would be useful to know how students who enroll in online classes differ from their peers in traditional lecture classes. One might expect these students to display certain distinguishing characteristics that would lead them to enroll in online classes.
Secondly, we ask what factors influence performance among online students and whether those factors might differ for online and lecture students. One reason for our interest in this issue is the higher dropout rate for students in the online section, which we observed in our previous study. Information about success in online classes would prove useful for both guidance and course development purposes."
Comment: Provocative title. Research in understanding student differences (online vs. classroom) and characteristics for success online is very limited. Two things I'd like to see come out of this type of paper: what can instructors do to ensure student success...and what can learners do to increase their potential for success. These are alluded to in the paper...but it would be nice to have some characteristics stated explicitly.