The Effectiveness of Virtual Learning in Economics‪.‬

INTRODUCTION The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have become pervasive in the academic realm, particularly in the coursework required to achieve success in higher education. The Internet has been extended far beyond its original scope as a highly specialized scientific communications network for the defense establishment and major research universities possessing high capacity computers (Strong & Harmon, 1997). Distance and independent education available on the Internet are the current buzz-words of higher education, and the hottest topic on many campuses is the "Virtual University." Colleges all over the country are targeting the geographically, professionally, and personally constrained for the time flexibility of online courses. Despite the growth of online courses, skeptics question whether the Internet instruction mode can offer the same quality of education that students receive in traditional classroom courses. Supporters of online instruction counter with evidence that distance learners retain information better than students in the traditional classroom setting. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of online instruction in economics by comparing student performance in the virtual versus traditional classroom. The results are based on an MBA course in macroeconomic theory at a regional college, West Texas A&M University.