Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Olinzock, Anthony

Committee Member

Yu, Chien

Committee Member

Davis, Ed

Committee Member

Adams, James

Date of Degree

12-10-2010

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Instructional Systems and Workforce Development

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Instructional Systems and Workforce Development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the Alabama Praxis II test score outcomes between students who received degrees online versus traditional students at an Alabama regional institution of higher learning. A random sample consisted of 50 online graduate students and 50 on campus graduate students. The following 2 graduate master’s degree programs were selected for this study: the Master’s of Education (M.Ed.) degree in School Counseling and the Master’s of Science in Continuing Education (M.S.C.E.) degree in Guidance Counseling. A summarization of the research questions for this study include the following: Is there a significant difference between online and traditional graduate students based on the Alabama Praxis II test scores; is there a significant difference between online and traditional graduate students based on gender, ethnicity, and age; and is there a meaningful relationship among age, GRE (Graduate Record Exam) score, and the Alabama Praxis II test score between online and traditional graduate students at a small four-year regional university in Alabama? The t-test performed on question one revealed a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups, and the online students earned higher scores than the campus students on the Praxis II test. The t-test was also used to answer part of question 2. When comparing African-American campus students to Caucasian campus students, the t-test revealed a statistically significant difference with Caucasians scoring higher between the two groups. An ANOVA was also used for question two to determine if there was a statistically significant difference of Praxis II test scores between campus age groups and online age groups. There were no significant differences in Praxis II test scores when students were grouped by age. One possible explanation for this finding is because the study only consisted of graduate students. In conclusion, this researcher found evidence that online students scored higher on the Alabama Praxis II examination than traditional, on-campus students. This research was limited to a small university in west Alabama, and the researcher recommends that further research be conducted to include other institutions with a larger sample and greater distribution of demographic variables.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17035

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