Study: real world learning helps online grades; few students complete online courses
Online courses benefit from real world studying.; Credit: José Goulão/Flickr
Students who take online courses perform better when they spend time
studying outside the virtual classroom, according to a study by MIT and Harvard researchers.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard looked at the performance of students who enrolled in a massive online open course version of a popular class taught at MIT. They found that students who said they studied with a partner scored an average of about three points higher than those who studied alone.
But they also found that few did so. Only one in five students who completed an end-of-course survey said they collaborated offline with other students or subject experts.
The course was based on MIT’s “Circuits and Electronics” class, which required for first year undergraduates in the Department of Electric Engineering and Computer Science. The online version consisted of lecture videos, an
Students who take online courses perform better when they spend time
studying outside the virtual classroom, according to a study by MIT and Harvard researchers.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard looked at the performance of students who enrolled in a massive online open course version of a popular class taught at MIT. They found that students who said they studied with a partner scored an average of about three points higher than those who studied alone.
But they also found that few did so. Only one in five students who completed an end-of-course survey said they collaborated offline with other students or subject experts.
The course was based on MIT’s “Circuits and Electronics” class, which required for first year undergraduates in the Department of Electric Engineering and Computer Science. The online version consisted of lecture videos, an