چکیده (انگلیسی):

This empirical study investigated the performance of the students who took an undergraduate
course “Information Society” either online, or in a traditional classroom setting in the semesters
fall 2002, spring 2003, spring 2004, and summer 2003. Our study analyzed the performance of
279 students in those semesters. The students in each semester or summer session completed the
same course work, including listening to the same lectures and taking the same exams. The results
of our analysis indicates that that the Internet students performed at least in the same level as the
on-campus students and that the online delivery method did not negatively affect success of the
students. However, we also found that the non-completion rates for the course Information Society
(SOC285) in fall 2002 and spring 2004 were different for students who took the course online or
in a traditional classroom setting, indicating that Internet students in the course had mo re
difficulties in finishing the course. The third major finding is that for online delivery, the students
in the short summer session (in summer 2003) performed as well as students in normal semesters
(fall 2002, spring 2003, and spring 2004) in terms of both completion rate and median scores.
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