Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education
An extended version of this post will be published in the journal of ECNU Review of Education.
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. ? VoltaireThe scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.? Claude Levi-Strauss
One of the most frequently and persistently asked questions about online education is “does it work” or “is it effective.” It is a legitimate question for it is only natural and reasonable for anyone faced with the decision to undertake online education to want to know if it works. But this seemingly reasonable question is not only meaningless but also dangerous.
The question is meaningless because there cannot be any definitive answer for a number of reasons. First, online education (and its variants such a online instruction, online teaching, distance education and distance learning) is a big umbrella that covers a wide array of different practices, which vary a great deal in terms of quality. Comparing the effectiveness of online education with face-to-face education has been the most common research approach to examine the effectiveness of online education. And the answer has been, for a long time, that there is no significant difference between the two. This answer, however, does not mean online is effective or not, it simply means there are plenty of effective and ineffective programs in both online and face-to-face education. In other words, the within variation is larger than the between variation (Zhao, Lei, Yan, Lai, & Tan, 2005). This is why after tens of thousands of research studies, the best answer one can get about whether online education works is that there is no significant difference from face-to-face education. Is “no difference” the same as effective? Does it mean it works or not?
Second, another reason that there cannot be a definitive answer to this question is the diversity of stakeholders in online education. While the typically assumed stakeholder is the student, hence most studies are about educational outcomes for students, but there are many other stakeholders. Teachers, online education providers, technology suppliers, families of students, tech support personnel, facility CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education
