Taking a course online instead of in person reduces student success and progress in college¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr?·q3
Currency · newest study 2017 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Taking a course online, instead of in-person, reduces student success and progress in college, estimated via instrumental variables. → Eric P. Bettinger 2017
Evidence¶
Eric P. Bettinger 2017¶
Eric P. Bettinger, Lindsay Fox, Susanna Loeb, Eric S. Taylor. (2017). Virtual Classrooms: How Online College Courses Affect Student Success. American Economic Review, vol. 107, no. 9. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/virtual-classrooms-how-online-college-courses-affect-student-success doi:10.1257/aer.20151193
q3 · i? · causal · r?
The article's key findings state the headline result: an instrumental variables analysis finds that taking a course online instead of in-person "reduces student success and progress in college." No effect size is printed on the page.
"Using an instrumental variables approach, we find that taking a course online, instead of in-person, reduces student success and progress in college."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- The estimated online-course effects are local to students with access to both online and in-person options — related
- Students taking courses online are less likely to remain enrolled at the university — related
- Online college courses are a rapidly expanding feature of higher education, with little prior research on their relative effects — a broader claim this one bears on
- For college students who can choose between online and in-person sections, taking a course online lowers grades both in that course and in future courses — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
online-course-taking-reduces-college-success |
title |
Taking a course online instead of in person reduces student success and progress in college |
description |
Taking a course online instead of in person reduces student success and progress in college |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2017 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-09 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — eric-p-bettinger-2017 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.