A small study, Choosing Between Online and Face-to-Face Courses: Community College Student Voices,
found students often choose traditional classroom instruction for courses they
believe are difficult, such as science and math, rather than take the same
class online. Flexibility and convenience are the main reasons students prefer
online courses, particularly nontraditional students with jobs and family, but
they prefer the interaction with instructors and peers of the traditional
classroom setting for subjects of special interest.
The research, done by the Community College Research
Center at Columbia University’s Teacher College, analyzed information obtained from
interviews of 46 students from two unidentified community colleges in the U.S.
“Most students felt they did not learn the course
material as well when they took it online,” the report said. “For most
students, this deficit was due to reduced teacher explanation and interaction;
for some respondents, the weaker student-student interaction was also
problematic. As a result, students did not want to risk taking difficult
courses online and preferred richer experience of the face-to-face classroom
when learning about subjects they felt were particularly interesting or
important.”
Students said they preferred a more traditional setting for courses such as math, lab sciences,
and languages, because “they needed the immediate question-and-answer context
of a face-to-face course,” according to a report in eCampus News.
