This study presents a comparative analysis of student outcomes between online and face-to-face learning modalities at an urban community college in the Midwest, with a focus on retention and academic success. The college serves an average of 14,000 students annually across more than seventy career programs. Utilizing a quantitative approach, the…

Investigations on the efficacy of online education have been both broad and ambiguous. On one side of the coin, research studies argue that there is no analytical or rational distinctness between the academic outcomes of online and face-to-face courses. The problem is that students will experience poor academic achievement when switching to online…

The purpose of this research study was to examine differences in perceptions of spirituality outcomes between online and in-person students taking theology courses at a Christian liberal arts college in the Midwestern United States. Using a validated instrument, the Religious Education Survey (RES), 71 students were surveyed. A one sample t test…

The College of Technology at Wilmington University launched the Virtual Instructor Pilot Program (VIPP) in Fall 2022 to address the shortage of qualified adjunct instructors for on-campus courses following the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assessed the VIPP's effectiveness by analyzing student academic performance in on-campus courses with remote…

Institutions of higher learning are offering an increasing number of compressed in-person classes with the goal of providing to their diverse student populations flexibility of instruction delivery. SIU and many other colleges are offering an increasing number of classes with compressed schedules to increase student enrollment (Krug, et al.,…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many schools were forced to interrupt in-person delivery of educational services and switched to delivery of instruction in a remote setting. The educational impacts of school closures and remote instructional delivery have become a concern for the impact on an entire generation of students. Although delivery of…

Due to COVID-19, this dissertation examined the newly created virtual and hybrid learning environments for elementary-aged students in a northeastern Catholic diocese in the United States during the 2020-2021 school year. The problem is schooling choices have not changed since the inception of compulsory schooling. This study examined five schools…

The COVID-19 pandemic affected education, causing schools in the United States to switch from face-to-face to remote learning modalities. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of educational modalities on academic achievement in K-12 education to contribute to evidence-based decision-making in science education by practitioners and…

Student-centered active learning strategies have been found to have a positive impact on student learning outcomes when compared to courses using traditional lecture methods in higher education. The practice of active learning is strongly linked to physical active learning classrooms (ALCs). Comprehensive studies show ALCs outperform traditional…

This dissertation consists of three papers. Online Learning, Offline Outcomes: Online Course Taking and High School Student Performance. This paper uses fixed effects models to estimate differences in contemporaneous and downstream academic outcomes for students who take courses virtually and face-to-face, both for initial attempts and for…

This observational, quantitative longitudinal study examined the retention gap among students studying exclusively online and those studying on-campus and compared variables related to outcomes and the completion rates of students at one private, non-profit, four-year university Master of Public Health Program (MPH) in the Midwest. It was unknown…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a significant relationship between school-wide academic outcomes and the instructional modalities utilized by public schools during the 2019-2022 school years. This study also determined if there was a significant difference in assessment scores earned by public school students…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each paper, I leverage a different quantitative method to study a downstream effect of technology on educational outcomes. In the first paper, I study the impact of an online math learning program on 3rd through 5th grade math achievement in Louisiana. Employing Zearn Math usage metrics and…

In this study, a comparative analysis was conducted to explore how students' learning outcomes were potentially influenced by student engagement during different modes of instruction. The study compared the final mean grade point averages (GPAs) of a sample (N = 600) of middle school students during in-person, online, and hybrid modes of…

This study examined the course success rates among students at a single, associate degree-granting state college based on faculty type and instructional modality. Analyses established the probability of a passing grade based on 1) faculty type at the adjunct and tenure-line levels, 2) instructional modality at the traditional and online course…