Center for Education Through Exploration, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America.
Biology Education Research Lab, Research for Inclusive STEM Education Center, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 11;15(12):e0243916. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243916. eCollection 2020.
Online education has grown rapidly in recent years with many universities now offering fully online degree programs even in STEM disciplines. These programs have the potential to broaden access to STEM degrees for people with social identities currently underrepresented in STEM. Here, we ask to what extent is that potential realized in terms of student enrollment and grades for a fully online degree program. Our analysis of data from more than 10,000 course-enrollments compares student demographics and course grades in a fully online biology degree program to demographics and grades in an equivalent in-person biology degree program at the same university. We find that women, first-generation to college students and students eligible for federal Pell grants constitute a larger proportion of students in the online program compared to the in-person mode. However, the online mode of instruction is associated with lower course grades relative to the in-person mode. Moreover, African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander students as well as federal Pell grant eligible students earned lower grades than white students and non-Pell grant eligible students, respectively, but the grade disparities were similar among both in-person and online student groups. Finally, we find that grade disparities between men and women are larger online compared to in-person, but that for first-generation to college women, the online mode of instruction is associated with little to no grade gap compared to continuing generation women. Our findings indicate that although this online degree program broadens access for some student populations, inequities in the experience remain and need to be addressed in order for online education to achieve its inclusive mission.
近年来，在线教育发展迅速，许多大学现在甚至在 STEM 学科中提供完全在线的学位课程。这些课程有可能为那些在 STEM 领域代表性不足的社会群体扩大获得 STEM 学位的机会。在这里，我们询问在学生注册和成绩方面，这个潜在目标在多大程度上得以实现，针对的是一个完全在线的学位课程。我们对来自 10000 多个课程注册的数据进行了分析，将完全在线生物学学位课程的学生人口统计数据和课程成绩与同一所大学相同的面授生物学学位课程的人口统计数据和成绩进行了比较。我们发现，与面授模式相比，女性、第一代大学生和符合联邦佩尔助学金条件的学生在在线课程中所占比例更大。然而，相对于面授模式，在线教学模式与较低的课程成绩相关。此外，非裔美国人/黑人、西班牙裔/拉丁裔、美国原住民和太平洋岛民学生以及符合联邦佩尔助学金条件的学生的成绩均低于白人学生和不符合佩尔助学金条件的学生，但面授和在线学生群体的成绩差距相似。最后，我们发现，与面授相比，在线模式中男女之间的成绩差距更大，但对于第一代大学生中的女性来说，与继续学业的女性相比，在线教学模式几乎没有成绩差距。我们的研究结果表明，尽管这个在线学位课程为一些学生群体扩大了机会，但经验中的不平等仍然存在，为了使在线教育实现其包容性使命，这些不平等需要得到解决。
