Accounting Education: A Comparative Study of Perception of Learning Outcomes in Traditional and Online Delivery Systems

As of 2007, over 20% of all higher education students in the U.S took at least one online course (Allen & Seaman, 2008), and over 200 universities offered some measure of online accounting courses (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008).This study compared the student learning outcomes of traditional and online delivery styles in accounting courses at the university level. The survey instruments were distributed by e-mail with a link to ®Survey Monkey to traditional and virtual degree program students at a large private university in Texas and teachers from large public and private colleges in Maryland, Missouri, and Texas. The Student Evaluation Form (SLF) and the Accounting Program Questionnaire (APQ) were two main instruments. The SLF was used to evaluate students’ perception of learning outcomes, and APQ was used to evaluate the teachers’ views of student perception of learning outcomes. The results showed no difference in student perceptions of overall learning outcomes. However, traditional students were more confident of accounting concepts than online students. Factorial ANOVA revealed interactions between enrollment status and delivery systems and significant differences in perception of overall learning outcome between those aged 18-25 and 36-45, as well as a significant difference with age group 26-35 between delivery systems