Diminishing the gap of learning performance in higher education by e-learning

In order to explore the effect of the school environment and the students' individual characteristics in relation to their learning performance, this study conducts an experiment to observe two groups of students - one from an academic university and the other from a technical institute taught by the same teacher under the same course and the same on-line learning system. Findings indicated that: (1) the categorization of advanced education institutions in Taiwan indeed created a "differentiating" effect; (2) In asynchronous online learning, school type does affect how students learn and their learning outcomes; (3) In similar learning environments, an asynchronous online learning environment will lower the impact of the school's learning and administrative environment, and personal background on students' learning environment interactive models, thus narrowing the gap between dominant and fringe groups.