Electronic vs. Traditional Education

Nearly thirty years ago, I attended my first electronic-based class at San Antonio College, San Antonio, Texas.  It was a lower division college writing class, creative writing.  The delivery format was a BBS (bulletin board system) where I connected via a 2400 baud modem to a college BBS server.  From there I would download the syllabus and assignment requirements, and upload completed assignments and to view grades.

It was an effective course and for me the excitement of saving time not having to drive to the near downtown campus from my home southwest and outside the loop, was highly motivating.  But there was more motivation.  Social evaluative situations such as classrooms were sometimes distracting to me – especially since it always seemed others were able to automatically tune in and plug in to the expectations of the social norms.  This seemed to be what drove their perceptions and thought processes, which often distracted them from critical thinking.

I often found the products of my thought processes weren’t simply following what others expected, and that the rest of the class wasn’t interested in anyone’s thoughts that didn’t have the same feel generated by the social conversations.  Or, I believe more accurately, they weren’t interested in the thoughts of someone who didn’t automatically plug in to and operate within the social network.  Such a phenomenon however is automatic – they cannot be blamed.

It was over twenty years later did I really start to understand why.  I will touch on this a little later in the post but for now I will focus on the electronic delivery format of college-level classes.

My academic career included successfully completing over twenty non-traditional classes from five regionally accredited colleges and universities ranging from lower division baccalaureate level to graduate level.  I’ve also successfully completed over three dozen classes in a traditional classroom.  I can argue from personal experience that I learned as much or more in the non-traditional classroom than in the traditional classroom.

Now this is not to say that some classes have labs where physical presence with other students may be preferable or even necessary.  Clinical training such as therapy role playing or psychotherapy internships may be reasonable examples where vis-à-vis is necessary.  But this cannot be argued as a stock rationale against online degrees where for most or all of the coursework in-person presence detracts more than it benefits.

For teachers whether they are called professors, instructors or mentors, I would think the preference would be the non-traditional format since they could finish most of their work – including research, without leaving their office.  This should afford a greater use of time while better servicing students.  But I cannot speak for them.

Another important difference is the gross inefficiency of verbal instruction vs. written.  I cannot tell you how horrible lectures are with regards to inefficiency.  I can read much faster than anyone of my teachers could speak, and what is written is usually far less ridden with filler content not related to the topics.  Moreover, I would have thoughts spawned within lectures that I either couldn’t capture or if I did I missed part of the lecture.

With written lectures, far more detail can be put into it, it rarely has useless rhetoric, and I can highlight and write thoughts on open spaces.  Moreover, I can read them anywhere so it is a much greater use of my time.  In the end I can attest that the expansion of at least my mind has occurred more in the non-traditional delivery format.  Since expansion of the mind is the primary objective of college level learning, such is an important finding.

I won’t even get into other issues I took with the traditional classroom such as distracting behavioral habits, tone of voice, and, I have to admit, the distractions of attractive women in the class.  Also, I usually interacted with teacher’s assistants and rarely interacted with the professor.  Simply put, I found it was more effective and efficient to figure out answers to my questions on my own rather than waiting for a match between open time in my schedule and the sparse office hours of the professor.  Usually, the opportunity never came before the assignment was due.

Finally, as I mentioned before, the social norms of the class often steered discussions into consensus-seeking rather than critical-oriented social norms.  Dissent was sometimes met with harshly, depending on the skill and maturity of the facilitator. 

A main paradigm of traditional academia is to provide experience in the collegial social setting, and such is a main argument for claiming residency is an element of program quality.  However, this tradition developed in a mindset of a caste view of society, and it developed before human kind had even a start in truly understanding the human social animal.  To put it simply, the social aspect of human nature is driven predominantly by the limbic system through processes that occur beneath our awareness.  These processes were with us before we evolved enough to develop society and they include serving evolution's fitness for survival.  Since universities do not teach this as a standard thematic requirement, how it impacts cognition in social settings, and have procedures and tools within discussion groups to maximize the benefit of discussions, such a claim for quality cannot be made.  Moreover, I found no empirical evidence of such even correlates to quality let alone causes it.

In those face-to-face discussions, never have I witnessed techniques used to prevent group process loss (e.g. group polarization or Groupthink), such as those I have used in group discussion settings throughout my career.  But the issue is far more than just group process loss.  These discussion-damaging norms stemmed from social automaton functioning, and the natural evolutionary tendency is to ostracize students at least in social evaluative terms who had low social automaton ability – and the latter would make the best therapists for instance because they would be less prone to transference.

This is all great rationale but what does the research reveal?  Interestingly, empirical evidence suggests that non-traditional courses are as good as or better than vis-à-vis traditional courses.  Moreover, research has found that students also become better learners and even score higher on exams.

Regardless, the debate is over.  Accrediting bodies and the U.S. Department of Education have all embraced the online format.  It should make sense because as colleges and universities were lobbying to stop online schools, many of them already offered distant learning in courses you wouldn’t think possible – such as biology – and you could even attend a traditional class without ever leaving your desk (via live streaming video).  Moreover, a majority of traditional universities now offer online degrees.  Even Ivy League schools offer degrees completely online or with limited residency.  I have even seen an online graduate degree offered by Harvard that had only a small residency requirement – which they said could be met with online courses if the student could prove they lived within commuting distance. 

For those demands for residency, the real rational has to do with loosing students and loosing government funding, or some other ulterior reason – but nothing to do with quality.  So far the criticisms by brick-and-mortar institutions fail to find support in empirical evidence, and their hypocrisy comes across loud and clear.

Perhaps the future will hold far more universities – far more opportunity – and a much higher percentage of the peoples of the world holding college degrees.  We want this.  The best way for society to capitalize on the human resource of the world is to maximize college graduation.

If universities really cared about equal opportunity and diversity on their campuses whether physical or virtual, they would embrace the virtual classroom.  After all, the only reason why it is hard to get into most universities is that the demand is higher than their capacity.

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Yahoo Answer: Does anyone know if Capella University and Walden University are legit colleges?

The answer listed as the top answer is completely flawed and I recommend considering a more rich and balanced set of data before deciding. Also, no one I worked for had a problem with my online work or online degree pursuits (I only attend institutions that are accredited, established, have an organizationally-rich infrastructure, and an alumni base I can contact.)

I don't know about Capella, but an accredited online university does not automatically correlate to being a joke. Moreover, top universities including Ivy League U's, are offering online degrees - in fact nearly all U's offer distant learning for many classes and many offer entire degrees online. Even Harvard offers online degrees and only some have a minimum residency requirement (see http://www.extension.harvard.edu/). One Harvard program I was interested in a few years ago, which I could not find recently, listed its residency requirement as only requiring you live within commuting distance of the campus (proving it with simply a utility bill) - otherwise an online course could be used for that residency requirement.

The online classes I took typically involve the flow of much more information than traditional classrooms, and too much of the information flow in classrooms traditionally require you take notes. But even note-taking is being replaced with classroom videos available via the web (streaming video), student recording devices, and online notes (all traditional courses today have websites). So the only difference between traditional and online formats is you have to be present to see and hear the professor, rather than e-mailing or chatting with the professor. I have found online formats I've consumed often have more reading and writing requirements. Moreover, you will get more individual attention in an online format than a traditional classroom - especially since universities are looking to increase classroom size (it increases revenue).

After over five years in traditional classrooms, I find the distant format most conducive to my learning, and since application of psychology has been the subject of my study and passion for nearly two decades, I can point out another reason why: we are not distracted and bogged down by social perceptual and cognitive processing. But the most significant reason is serious problems exist with traditional institutions. This is a long discussion, but one point is there is far more bias at traditional U's. It is hard to come out with a balanced education without picking up professors' attitudes and opinions as factual knowledge. (This is why academic advisors suggest getting your degrees at a different institutions). Also, I can say from my experience at a couple of universities (UMN and ASU), the learning guidance was horrible. The mindset was they have more students applying than they can enroll, so it is a weeding-out process.

Another reason is that TAs (teacher's assistants) are used at traditional universities who are usually masters students needing a job or meeting a degree requirement. I've found with few exceptions that TAs hinder the education process. For one, between themselves and the professor, they were seldom in sync. Also, they don't typically care about your education.

Finally, many if not most professors are more interested in the more important aspect of their jobs: securing research funding and career advancement. Many professors are also typically more interested in advancing their career than how good an education you get. They will deny it but typical human nature and the nature of their job make this hard to avoid. Professors in traditional settings are supposed to deliver the following: 1) explain the material (audibly is apparently held to be better), 2) guide your learning, and 3) and provide unique commentary. I have seldom found 2) to exist, and found little value in 3) other than bias. The first one is also rarely done well, and the lack of individual attention negates this one pretty quick.

However, it is important to note that online learning requires you master your education, and may be a harder format to learn in for many students.

My academic experience includes distant classes in several formats from streaming (and closed circuit) video to snail mail to internet, and at one college (San Antonio College - http://www.accd.edu/sac/sacmain/sac.htm), two traditional and reputable universities (Regis University - http://www.regis.edu/ and University of Minnesota - http://www.umn.edu/), and one online university (Northcentral University – http://www.ncu.edu). I was also trained/educated by the University of Minnesota on education principals and theory applied to how to design a degree program - which included how to develop coursework that is genuine college-level learning at the appropriate educational level. So I have some qualification in comparing quality of education received.

In comparing content, learning guidance (mentoring), and level of education, I find the distant format to provide as much or more educational value than the traditional setting. I personally get more education from the online distant format than the traditional setting.

(Regarding NCU, I checked out several accredited online institutions, including Capella and Walden, which included exhaustive surveying of staff and alumni, and what is going on with their involvement with the Department of Higher Education and associated regional accreditation authority. I was most pleased with NCU and the format of their delivery. Furthermore, they were founded by educators with very impressive credentials. Check out http://www.ncu.edu/ for more details - you find answers at NCU, rather than the "we'll call you" crap at Walden, Capella and Phoenix. I don't like an institution that requires someone to sell me information.)

Another point to consider is in higher education, there are political and competitive motivations underpinning their resistance to online schools (though they do not apply their accusations to the online degrees offered by their own schools.) This resistance for instance, is adding residency requirements for degrees in order to obtain state licensure in various professions (essentially weeding out online programs). Yet they are not interested in adding more significant requirements that should exist, because the lobbying institutions do not meet those requirements.

Case and point: the Minnesota Board of Psychology is adding a small residency requirement in degree programs to obtain licensure as a psychologist. However, there is no empirical evidence to back up what this hopes to accomplish other than disqualifying online school graduates. For instance, they should specify more community learning goals with the residency requirement, or have more clinical-oriented requirements (since psychologists are clinicians). Few institutions offer clinical oriented degrees. So you can go to Stanford, which does not offer a clinical degree in psychology, and be licensed because, of course, Stanford has a prestigious reputation.

When you strip away all the BS, the aversion to online degrees all boils down to little more than dogma, politics, competition, and prestige - not scientific foundation.

Of course there are some online schools that are not well developed or are not accredited, and many are indeed diploma mills. Avoid such schools at all costs.