Quantitative Comparison of Traditional to Combined Online Instruction

This study combined four online teaching methods into a business statistics lesson for MBA students. The results were that the online methods increased student scores on a pretest/posttest while traditional methods did not. The four methods were an e-coursemap for navigation, learning objects, a WebQuest, and an immerstive online case study. A student was able to navigate using the single Web page showing lessons for skills-building, and then are able to practice those new skills in an online case study format. Each case study has the student role-play as a consultant, solving business problems, analyzing data, all within a simulated business environment of real-world pictures. The most surprising part of the research was that the online students had no professor or textbook. Those online students used only the Web site for lessons and assessment. The Web site does not replace an LMS system, but instead complements it.