Rolling P: Comparison of internet and traditional classroom instruction in a consumer economics course

The purpose of this study was to compare students enrolled in an introductory family and consumer sciences undergraduate consumer economics course on selected academic, perceptual, and demographic characteristics by whether they received instruction in a traditional classroom setting or through an electronic classroom format (specifically the Internet). Students enrolled in the online section of the course scored higher on the achievement posttest after controlling for pretest differences in the groups. In addition, students in the online section self-reported that they spent more time working on the course assignments. Researchers recommended that future research incorporate more extensive demographic characteristics to determine if they interact with the type of instruction received. In addition, experimental methods were recommended for further studies to more effectively remove the effects of extraneous variables. In the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in the number of distance education courses offered at the post-secondary level. Technology-supported distance education is Athe delivery of instruction over a distance to individuals located in one or more venues @ (U.S