by Joseph Gaziano and Laurette Liesen, Lewis University
This paper is an examination of student opinions about online classes. A questionnaire was administered to 168 students in the introductory class in political science and a sociology class. Students were given a 20 item inventory designed to rate online and traditional classes. The questionnaire also contained information about student demographics and learning styles. Both of these were correlated with student attitudes. The results show strong support for the classroom over online learning. The most favorable attitudes toward online classes were found among students who had taken three or more classes online. Demographic differences did not reach statistical significance suggesting that the newest generation of students do not have the same problems with computers that previous students encountered.