Students Educational Results in Blended and Online E-Courses

The article presents a comparative analysis of the academic achievements of students who completed e-courses on mathematical methods in psychology by means of blended learning (N = 404) and online learning (N = 405). The research was carried out at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. Students in online learning achieved, on average, higher results compared with the blended learning group in the pre-test, post-test, and final course grades, however, the difference in the means for all 3 indicators is minimal, and the significance of the differences is provided by the large sample size. In a smaller sample, no significant differences in post-test and final course grades were found between the two groups. The academic achievements of graduate and undergraduate students are also practically equal: the differences in the post-test and final grade are on the verge of statistical significance, and the difference in the means is minimal and is only about 1 percentage point, which is consistent with our previous study. The dynamics of changes in the average values for academic achievement indicators in the groups of blended and online learning showed a very pronounced – about 50 percentage points – growth in the posttest indicators compared to the pretest, and then a less pronounced decline in results after1–1.5 months, measured according to the external test, which remain significantly higher than the pre-test. The decline in the online learning group is very minor, i.e., the dynamics is better. The latter result requires further verification under more equalized external testing conditions. The effect of learning in e-courses in both blended and online formats has been statistically proven. The “e-course plus” formula is proposed as a formula for a modern approach in higher education.