Quality and Satisfaction of Blended-style Education in Economic Courses

There is an assumption that ICT brings a new way of learning and teaching, so it should accompanied by new pedagogies and new approaches and strategies. The idea of blending different learning experiences has been in existence ever since humans started thinking about teaching. What has recently brought this term into the limelight is the infusion of web-based technologies into the learning and teaching process which have created new opportunities for students to interact with their peers, faculty and content, inside and outside of the classroom. And it is necessary to know the level of economic students' satisfaction with online versus traditional courses as well as finding an effective strategy for students’ success and retention. Recent studies compared student performance, satisfaction and persistence between online and face-to-face classes course found no significant difference in grades between online and traditional classes; however, students in the online course were significantly less satisfied with the course on several dimensions. Among the most often cited culprits of over reliance on e-Learning in online programs are physical isolation, lack of social support or interaction and high attrition rates. The intent of this study was to examine differences (quality and satisfaction) between online and traditional classroom learning for undergraduate economic courses and to highlight the effectiveness of blended-style education. Specifically, the study explores the difference between three methods of learning (E-learning, face-to-face and blended-style of education) which is measured by final course grades and student satisfaction which is measured by student evaluation of instruction ratings.