Many of you have seen the recent article in the Chronicle, "Community College Students Perform Worse Online than Face-to-Face" (accessible at http://chronicle.com/article/Community-College-Students/128281/ ), or the original articles on which it based, describing research on students in Washington and Virginia.
I am trying to get some comparative data on completion rates, specifically for online and in-class physics courses. If you have taught any introductory undergraduate physics courses in the last year, in any modality (online, in-class, or hybrid), please take the time to complete the brief 7-question survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CZNCYGY . The survey specifically addresses standard introductory general physics courses, both algebra-trig based and calculus based, and excludes specialty physics courses, such as Physics of Music, Astronomy, Physics for Elementary Ed., etc.
I will warn you in advance - the survey LOOKS daunting at first. However, if you pull up your starting roster for your 2010-2011 academic year physics courses in advance, it will be extremely easy to complete. Also, if you would like to be notified of the survey results via e-mail, please indicate so in the space provided in the survey.
Thank you for your time and help.
Ann Reagan
Dr. Ann M. Reagan
Adjunct Faculty
Department of Math/Physics/Engineering
College of Southern Maryland, Leonardtown Campus