Term of Award

Fall 2006

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Committee Chair

Abebayehu Tekleselassie

Committee Member 1

Diane Turnball

Committee Member 2

Linda Arthur

Committee Member 3

James Burnham

Committee Member 3 Email

Unknown

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the differences in academic performance between distance learning students and traditional on-campus students in allied healthcare education. The research was conducted at an academic medical university and three programs were included in the study, clinical laboratory science, health information administration, and nuclear medicine technology. A total of 252 sets of student data were used in the statistical analyses, and of these 252, 174 (69%) were oncampus students and 78 (31%) were distance students. The researcher sought to determine to what extent differences existed between the two groups by the background characteristics of gender, age, and previous academic performance. The researcher found that there was no significant difference between the two groups for gender or previous academic performance. However, there was a significant difference in age between the two groups. Sixty-four percent of the on-campus students were 25-years-old or less, while 72% of the distance students were greater than 25-years-old. 2 Academic performance was compared between distance students and on-campus students using the final GPA scores and external certification scores. The researcher found no significant difference in final GPA scores or in certification pass rates between the distance learning students and on-campus students. The pass rate for on-campus students was 86% and the pass rate for distance students was 87%. When the three programs were looked at individually, it was found that there was no significant difference in final GPA scores within the three programs. There was also no significant difference in certification scores between distance learning students and on-campus students for clinical laboratory science and health informatics. However, for nuclear medicine technology, there was a statistically significant difference (p < .01) between the two groups. The mean distance certification score was 76.62 for the distance students while the mean certification score for the on-campus students was 79.94.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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