Below, Walden University President Jonathan Kaplan responds to a recent study from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that confirmed the benefits of distance learning. The article was originally published in Inside Higher Ed, a leading source of higher education news.
The ED study, Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, found that, on average, students who took some or all of a course online performed better than students who received face-to-face instruction in the same course. The report was based on 12 years of research. When looking at tested performance, the report found that online students ranked in the 59th percentile while traditional students ranked in the 50th percentile.
