Summer school students studying Algebra I online for credit recovery don't do as well as those in traditional classes. The results of a study done by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that more students in the face-to-face courses earned passing grades and scored higher in end-of-course assessments than learners doing their studies strictly online.
The research project involved 1,224 students in grade 9 attending 17 public schools in Chicago, all of whom failed second semester Algebra I. They all enrolled in summer schools during 2011 or 2012 to make up the course and were randomly assigned to either online or face-to-face instruction. The study encompassed 76 classes evenly split between online and face-to-face. Both classes met every day for about four hours for three to four weeks. Class size, student characteristics and prior achievement levels were comparable for all of the students...