Learning on Campus and Learning at a Distance: A Randomized Instructional Experiment

To address a major methodological problem in the body of evidence on distance learning in postsecondary education, we conducted a randomized, true-experiment paired with a quasi-experiment. Community college students randomly assigned to receive instruction at a distance via a two-way interactive telecourse demonstrated learning equivalent to that of students assigned to on-campus, face-to-face instruction. However, students choosing to take the course via telecourse at remote sites had significantly higher course learning than either randomly assigned group. Such evidence suggests that the body of evidence on distance learning could be seriously confounded by learner self-selection.