On-line vs. Face to Face Education

The bottom line of this meta-analysis is that on-line education in general provides better educational outcomes than face-to-face education, and that "blended" education does even better. But the reason these formats perform better is not, apparently, the medium involved but that on-line and blended typically require of the student more effort. This gets back to the arguments I was just reading in "Outliers" which emphasizes the importance of "time on task" and argues, as a consequence, for longer school years. Academic rigor and time on task, in other words, are the key to effective learning, not the medium by which that education takes place.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/online