Work

Zooming to Class? Experimental Evidence on College Students’ Online Learning during COVID-19

Year: 2024

Type: article

Study designs: Randomized Controlled Trial, Clinical Trial

Abstract: COVID-19 shifted schools and colleges to online instruction with little causal evidence of outcomes. In the fall of 2020, we randomized 551 West Point students in a required Introductory Economics course across twelve instructors to either an online or in-person class. Final grades for online students dropped by 0.215 standard deviations; a result apparent in both assignments and exams and largest for academically at-risk students. A post-course survey finds that online students struggled to concentrate in class and felt less connected to their instructors and peers. We find that the shift to online education had negative results for learning.

Source: American Economic Review Insights

DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20230077

Authors: Michael S. Kofoed, Lucas Gebhart, Dallas Gilmore, Ryan Moschitto

Institutions: University of Tennessee at Knoxville, United States Department of the Army, United States Army, United States Military Academy

Language: English

Topic: Education during COVID-19 pandemic

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

Funder: U.S. Department of Defense