The aim of this study was to investigate the learner variables that may have a relationship with academic achievement in a distance versus a conventional education setting. A random sample of 500 male and female undergraduate students was taken from Palestinian universities. Two hundred fifty students were drawn randomly from Al-Quds Open University, which represents distance education. Another 250 students were drawn from An-Najah National University, which represents conventional education. Rotter's Locus of Control Scale, plus a questionnaire which identified other learners’ variables: gender, the average of government general high school exam, prior high school specialization (literature, science), university specialization (literature, science, education, and business administration), university academic level (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors), and work responsibility (work/no work) were distributed to collect data from both universities. The collected data were correlated to the reported university academic achievement that was expressed in the cumulative average obtained up to the fall semester of the 1996/1997 school year. Descriptive and analytic statistics were used to analyze the data by using Pearson r, on the one hand, and F-test, on the other. They revealed the following results: (1) Prior high school academic achievement was correlated significantly with university academic achievement in both universities; (2) Prior high school specialization was correlated significantly with university academic achievement, in favor of science specialization for both universities; and (3) University specialization was also correlated significantly with university academic achievement, in favor of science specialization for both universities. In light of these results, the researcher recommends the university curriculum planners consider courses in science to be compulsory courses regardless of student's university specialization. Such courses are expected to force students to use their mental process deeply during learning, hence, to enhance their academic achievement.
Afnan N. Darwazeh (Thu,) studied this question.