Face-to-Face and E-learning Styles for Undergraduate Engineering Technology Students During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract Education has changed dramatically with the surging growth of online learning since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the entire globe has turned away from classrooms. Teaching has moved to be via digital platforms. With this abrupt shift to digital learning, a concern has been raised about how this shift will affect worldwide learning. This research aims to study the impact of the COVID-19 switch on student performance and whether online learning can deliver the same academic student performance as face-to-face. The data of this study was compiled from three engineering courses taught at the engineering technology department at a public university in Texas. The complexity of these courses ranges from low, average, and high levels for courses A, B, and C, respectively. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the differences in student performance outcomes of three exams and other graded assignments. The impact of four learning modalities, involving face-to-face (F2F), synchronous, asynchronous, and mixed (F2F and synchronous), was explored. The results of the overall mean scores show that, for courses B and C, the student performance outcomes are higher in the mixed (F2F and synchronous) and online groups (synchronous and asynchronous groups) than in the F2F group. For course A, there is a significant difference in the overall academic performance of online learning modes compared to F2F. Whereby, in general, the F2F mode delivers a higher level of student performance outcomes than that delivered by mixed and asynchronous groups for these kinds of courses.