Relative Effects of Distance versus Traditional Course Delivery on Student Performance in Hong Kong

This study examined the performance of two groups of students taking an introductory course on Business Communication in Hong Kong offered through the distance-learning mode and traditional mode of delivery respectively. After controlling the background factors of the students (including age, gender, marital status, semester course load, relevant academic background, and previous academic achievement) which may affect their performance, it was found that students from the traditional class outperformed their counterparts from the distance-learning class at a significant level. After having all the background factors controlled, the only difference between the two groups was the number of face-to-face contact hours, suggesting that face-to-face communication is crucial for facilitating better student learning outcomes. Introduction Distance learning has grown to be an essential learning mode, and more and more conventional education institutions are involved in offering distance-learning courses (Gubernick and Ebeling 1997). While taking the advantage of the benefits offered by distance-learning mode, such as flexibility and mass delivery, it is essential for education institutions to ensure the quality of the courses offered through distance learning, especially there is continuous concern about the effectiveness of distance learning. There is some doubt that distance-learning classes do not have the same standard of conventional classes. In response to this, many studies have been carried out to compare the student performance of traditional and distance-learning classes. These studies have provided valuable chances to examine the performance of the two classes. However, mixed conclusions have been drawn from these studies. Besides, there are still some gaps that need to be filled in the literature. First, the majority of these studies were on student performance in accounting, economics or finance courses. second, the distance-learning classes involved in previous research were mainly on-line or TV classes. Third, only the average final grades were used when evaluating student performance. Given that the number of educational institutions offering distance-learning courses is increasing, more research should be done to compare student achievement of distance-learning and traditional classes 1) with a different subject discipline; 2) with a different distance-learning delivery method; 3) with a different approach to evaluate student performance. In this study, student performance of a business communication course offered in two different modes by the Open University of Hong Kong was examined. Prior Research In the literature, many studies compared the student performance of traditional and distance-learning classes. In Heiens and Hulse's study (1996), the final grade of 48 students studied an organizational behavior course in a distance-learning class and 71 students took the course through the traditional mode was examined. No significant difference in student performance was found between the two classes. The finding of Ryan's study (1996) was consistent with that of Heiens and Husle's study (1996). Ryan (1996) examined the difference between the achievement of students who studied advanced mathematics through a distance learning mode and that of those who studied the same course in a traditional class. In comparing the final course grade of 630 students, he found that the achievement of the two groups did not differ significantly. Similarly, Abraham (2002) found no significant difference in the student performance between the traditional class and distance-learning class. The researcher examined the achievement of 20 students studying a management information systems course in a traditional classroom setting and 22 students learning the same course in a virtual learning environment. Same result was obtained in the studies of Dellana, Collins and West (2000) and Kekkonen-Moneta and Moneta (2002). …