Study 1 compared traditional face-to-face education to distance education to determine if distance education is better, worse, or as good. It examined various metrics like test scores, homework grades, and found significant differences in post-test scores, final exam scores, and age, but no significant differences in other metrics like pre-test scores and final grades. Study 2 conducted a meta-analysis of 86 studies comparing traditional and distance education academic performance. It found that over two-thirds of studies showed distance education outperformed traditional education. The overall effect size was medium and positive for distance education, so the study rejected the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the two methods.

1. Study 1 :
Title: Distance Education: Better, Worse, Or As Good As Traditional Education?
Shelia Tucker ,East Carolina University
Purpose: This study, which was conducted in 1999, compared traditional face-to-face
education and distance education in an attempt to determine if distance education is better,
worse, or as good as traditional education. Both groups were studied to determine whether
there were significant differences in preferred learning styles, age, homework grades,
research paper grades, final exam scores, final course grades, and subject matter knowledge
as measured by a pre-test and post-test.
Findings: To determine whether distance education is better, worse, or as good as
traditional education, this study examined pre-test and post-test scores, age, preferred
learning styles, homework grades, research paper grades, final exam scores, and final course
grades. T-statistics, means, and standard deviations were obtained for both classes.
Significant differences were found at the .05 alpha level for post-test scores, final exam
scores, and age. No significant difference at the .05 alpha level between the two groups was
found with regard to pre-test scores, homework grades, research paper grades, and final
course grades.
Study 2 :
Title: Differences Between Traditional and Distance Education Academic Performances: A
meta-analytic approach.
Mickey Shachar and Yoram Neumann
Touro University International
USA
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to research and provide an answer to the question
of “quality” of DE programs: “Is there a difference in the quality of learning outcomes of DE
programs compared to traditional F2F programs?” In order to examine the issue in its totality,

2. a meta-analytical approach was adopted to synthesize various research studies in this field,
and to examine differences between the two methods of delivery.
Finding: all previous findings for the research question: Of the 86 qualifying studies, over
two-thirds were positive, denoting that DE out-performed F2F. The overall effect size
calculated was positive in direction, and, by Lipsey’s (1990) standards, the overall effect size
(d+ = 0.366) was of a medium magnitude.
The overall effect size of 0.366 calculated from 86 studies and testing for Chi Square of 397
brought us to the conclusion that our null hypothesis defined as: “there is no difference
between DE and F2F instruction for the final academic performance factor,” should be
rejected in favor of our alternative hypothesis.
G:Differences Between Traditional and Distance Education Academic Performances A Meta-
Analytic Approach Shachar The International Review of Research in Open and Distance
Learning.mht