in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies

is must reading for anyone involved in education generally, and distance educa-tion specifically. This report is a compre-hensive review of 51 studies that: • “contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, • measured student learning outcomes, • used a rigorous research design, and • provided adequate information to cal-culate an effect size. ” (p. ix) The report’s most quoted conclusion is printed in italics in its abstract and states, “The meta-analysis found that, on average, stu-dents in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruc-tion ” (p. ix). The 70-page report is well-written, informative, and scholarly. It is an impor-tant document that attempts to provide a state-of-the-research report on the effec-tiveness of online/distance education. Unfortunately, unless carefully read, the report can be misleading. On page 51, the report’s authors, staff-ers from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning under contract t