Flipped classrooms, online courses, and other forms of distance education have become increasingly popular and are still a hot topic of debate. In some forms of distance learning, students do not physically attend lectures but instead engage through (interactive) videoconferencing. In a study by Bertsch et al. (2007) it was evaluated whether students who participate through videoconferencing perform worse, better, or equal as those who physically attend the lectures.
The authors used a smart design to test instead. Instead of the common design where half of the students are in one condition (physically present) and the other in the experimental condition (teleconferencing), they used a so-called crossover design. In this design, all students spend half their time in one condition, and in half in the other condition. This helps to reduce confounds and unbalanced designs which can affect the validity of a study. In this particular study, 52 medical students participated. However, the results showed that the method of participation had no affect on the student grades: with a mean score of 76% for lectures attended in person and a mean score of 78% for lectures attended via teleconferencing. Conclusions: Students learn content focused on clinical learning objectives as well using videoconferencing as they do in the traditional classroom setting.
Source:
Bertsch, T. F., Callas, P. W., Rubin, A., Caputo, M. P., & Ricci, M. A. (2007). Applied research: effectiveness of lectures attended via interactive video conferencing versus in-person in preparing third-year internal medicine clerkship students for clinical practice examinations (cpx). Teaching and learning in medicine, 19(1), 4-8.