Research Shows Evolving Picture of E-Education

By Debra Viadero

Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.

But that broad conclusion, which comes mainly from a couple of research syntheses published in 2001 and 2004, masks a lot of variation in the designs of online classes and in who takes them. A middle school student in a remote area of West Virginia, for example, might take his online Spanish class during 3rd period every day, in a classroom alongside his classmates, while in Detroit, a gifted high school student logs in to her forensic-science class at home and works alone and at her own pace.

“We know it’s ‘as good as, if not better,’ in terms of student achievement,” says Rick E. Ferdig, an associate professor of educational technology at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, who runs the Virtual School Clearinghouse research project . The project enables states to analyze their own statistics and pool data, making it publicly available for...