A study suggests students in virtual classes make the same academic progress as their brick-and-mortar peers.
The proliferation of virtual education, in Florida and elsewhere, has one clear benefit: It gives students the ability to take courses that wouldn't otherwise be available to them.
But what are the potential drawbacks? If students are attending classes online and receiving less face-to-face instruction, could their achievement suffer?
There are gaps in the existing evidence on the effects of virtual education on student learning. A recent working paper by two respected researchers helps fill that void. It shows that students in the country's largest state-sponsored virtual school score at least as well on standardized tests as their brick-and-mortar peers.
Matt Chingos, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy, and Guido Schwerdt of the University of Konstanz started with students who had similar demographics and eighth-grade test scores. They then compared their tenth-grade test scores based on whether they took ninth-grade algebra and English courses in-person or through Florida Virtual School.
Their paper summarizes the results this way: "Both approaches indicate that FLVS students perform about the same as or better than non-FLVS students on state tests in reading and math." Those results could help bolster the case of online learning advocates who promote virtual courses as a way to expand access to courses that students might not have available on their traditional campuses.
It is pretty clear that virtual education increases access to courses (by definition), but critics have raised concerns about quality. Specifically, they worry that students will learn less in virtual courses than they would in the classroom. Our results suggest that these concerns are not supported by the evidence, both overall and for various subgroups of students.
The researchers note their study has limitations. For one thing, the student data are from the 2008-09 school year, meaning they are more than five years old. In the past five years, virtual education enrollment has surged, and it is becoming more mainstream in Florida thanks to a requirement that all students must take at least one virtual course before they graduate.
Also, because the study is not based on a random experiment, there may be other hidden factors that affect the analysis. The researchers note some of those factors may work against virtual schools in their comparisons. It's possible that students are more likely to sign up for virtual courses if they have doubts about the quality of their brick-and-mortar teacher. If that's the case, the researchers note, "The true FLVS effects may be more positive than those reported here."
The study was flagged last month by Education Next as some of the first solid evidence on the effects of virtual instruction. In a statement, Ron Blocker, Florida Virtual School's interim CEO, said the working paper provides some of the first credible, empirical evidence that virtual schools can produce "equal or greater outcomes for students at a cost savings to taxpayers."
"This is something we already knew, but it is nice to have validation from a reputable, outside source," he said. "It is no longer a question whether or not online learning works, but how to make online learning even more effective and engaging."
Photo courtesy of Florida Virtual School.
