An Analysis of the Virtual Classroom: Does Size Matter? Do Residencies Make a Difference? Should You Hire That Instructional Designer?

Using 2003-2004 data from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies distance education program, we use regression analysis to examine the impact of enrollment, faculty teaching experience, online faculty pedagogical training, and help from an instructional designer on student course evaluations. This paper shows that higher enrollments result in lower teaching evaluations in traditional classroom-based courses, while online courses maximize overall student satisfaction at a class size of 23-25 students. Introduction There is a significant body of evidence that online education is at least as good as classroom-based instruction. Russel (1999) provides sufficient evidence that there is no significant difference between the quality of face to face and online education. Subsequent studies have reinforced the "no significant difference phenomenon."1 Distance education research has advanced to determining how online courses can be taught, structured, and supported to ensure quality education. Authors of The Sloan Consortium studies (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) provide many examples of best practices in online education, examining faculty satisfaction, learner satisfaction, cost-effectiveness, and other measures of quality.2 The recently formed Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) Consortium uses the combined experiences of the consortium members to provide "quality principles" in online education in library and information science.3 However, despite the volumes of best practices case studies and statements on what defines quality online education, there is still limited empirical research on several key factors in online education. Does class size matter? Do course residencies matter? Does an instructional designer make a difference? In examining any one of these issues, it is clear that the issues for online classes are different than for campus classes. If class size does not matter, a single online classroom can accommodate an unlimited number of students. The virtual classroom is not constrained by a physical number of chairs or size of a room. But while the constraint is not the size of the classroom, it may be more difficult for an instructor to give attention to larger classes online. The larger online class may also impact the interaction among the students, and ultimately the quality of the experience. There are a number of studies that examine the impact of class size on student achievement for traditional face to face classes in K-1 2 education; Preece (1987); Slavin (1989); Hanushek (1999); Nye, Hedges, and Konstantopoulos (2002). Preece presents a theoretical basis of how large class size can negatively impact student performance, but the empirical evidence of this negative relationship is mixed.4 The only study on the impact of class size on student achievement for a class offered in distance education format at the university level is Sugrue, Reitz, and Hansen (1 999).5 Sugrue, et al, examine the impact of enrollment on student performance in a managerial finance course offered face-to-face and with two-way video. The researchers used regression analysis on student exam scores to show that an increase in enrollment from 28 to 64 students in the distance education class lowered student performance even when accounting for student ability and initial perception of the class. To examine the impact of class size on the online classroom, this study uses student evaluation data from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies campus and online courses from 2003 and 2004. We used three different methods - scatter charts, regression analysis, and fixed-effects regression analysis - to examine the impact of enrollments on campus and online course evaluations. We test for the impact of enrollment on student evaluations while controlling for faculty teaching experience, online faculty pedagogical training, help from an instructional designer, and whether the course was taught during the summer. …