Comparison of online and traditional ethics education: a pilot study

This research note describes a pilot study that tested the feasibility measures for ascertaining whether students in an online ethics course learn as much as, less than, or more than students enrolled in a traditional (classroom) ethics course.

Participating students in both the online and traditional courses completed a Technology Survey to measure possible group differences in terms of their familiarity and comfort level with using a computer, and a Richness of Experience Survey to garner their perceptions of the learning environment of the course. Students' academic performance in the two classes were also compared.

The Technology Survey revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups at the .05 level on any of the items, with the exception of the item about the convenience of attending class. The groups did not differ in terms of their performance on any of the academic performance criteria, although the descriptive data were suggestive. Finally, the data from the Richness of Experience Survey also showed no distinction between the groups.

Because the number of participants is very small, this analysis had low power. The descriptive data presented indicate that further research into differences on the essay portion of the exam may be warranted.