By TRAVIS ARMBRUSTER, BRITTANY PROCTOR & MADISON HALLER
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
Online college classes are a polarizing subject. Some students love them for their flexibility. Others hate them for their lack of access to professors. And many others give them mixed reviews. One thing is for certain: Online education is increasingly common across the country. We set out to investigate how students at Towson University felt about online classes through a survey of undergraduates. We also examined the growth of online classes – and where that growth is happening at Towson.
Students give online classes mixed reviews
When asked in an open-ended question to describe their experience with online classes in one word, answers varied greatly. A commonly used word was “convenient,” with students explaining that they liked the schedule flexibility that allowed them to do work on their own time and still have a full or part-time job. In fact, more than half of participants said they chose their online classes because they wanted more flexibility in their schedule. One student noted that not having to go to campus to get credits was a major plus. Other students used positive words to describe their experience, including “independent” and “chill.”
However, many students had negative experiences, summarized in words such as “horrible,” “pointless,” “disorganized,” “disconnected” and “stressful.” Some said they took online courses only because face-to-face classes weren’t available on that subject. One student who described her experience taking a class in the College of Health Professions as “horrible” said that she had originally wanted to take an online class because she wanted more flexibility in her schedule. However, she ended up being overworked with readings, assignments and quizzes every night. A student who took an online course in the College of Fine Arts and Communication said overall she had a positive experience but the course had a lot of technical issues.
Many students complained that with online courses it was easy to fall behind and hard to get feedback if they had questions. They had little face-to-face time with professors and almost no communication with their classmates. They did not like the lack of personal relationships with anybody in the class. One student said “there was no engagement so I forgot I was in the class sometimes.”
Overall, the survey found that the majority of students preferred face-to-face classes. Out of the 47 participants who answered a question about their preference in class format, 26 students said they prefer a face-to-face format, 11 students prefer a hybrid class (both online and face-to-face) and eight students prefer taking an online course. Out of these participants, all of them had taken an online class. People preferred face-to face more than online because they were able to build a relationship with the professors, they could ask questions in real time and communicate better with their classmates.
Previous research also found that online courses received mixed reviews, with some student complaints about course quality. According to the report from Babson Survey Research Group, “Students need more discipline to succeed in an online course than in a face-to-face course.”
Students in our survey thought that lecture-based courses were best suited for online, while discussion-based or presentation-based courses were not.
Our survey also found that half of respondents believed that online classes are more conducive to cheating than traditional classes, while 12% of students did not believe online classes were more prone to cheating, and 35% of students preferred not to answer.
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Online classes increasing at Towson
An analysis of courses listed in PeopleSoft, Towson’s online course database, revealed a significant growth in online courses over the past six years. Specifically, the most notable growth came between fall 2013, when there were 42 online classes (we did not include hybrid courses in our analysis), and in fall 2016, when there were 112 online classes.
Kevin Murphy, a lecturer in the Department of English who teaches online courses during the summer, said it’s convenient for the university to offer these courses because they do not take up a physical classroom on campus. Online courses allow more students to be able to take the courses because they are allowed to take it anywhere or anytime.
“This helps our students who may be working somewhere and don’t have the time or may not have reliable transportation to make it to the campus,” he said.
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Every Towson college offered some online courses, according to our analysis. The College of Health Professions typically offered the most online classes over the past six years — a total of 211 courses (25.51%). The college with the least amount of online classes offered was the College of Fine Arts and Communication, with a total of 48 courses over the time period analyzed (5.8%). It’s worth noting that the College of Health Professions is larger than the College of Fine Arts and Communication.
In terms of graduate and undergraduate courses offered online, graduate classes are more common. Our data analysis found that there were 349 undergraduate classes and 477 graduate classes offered online at Towson over the past five years. The College of Science and Mathematics offered the most online graduate classes with 157 classes. These are upper-level courses, as opposed to introduction lectures, which are the less commonly offered online.