Improving the Student Experience: Allowing Students Enrolled in a Required Course to Select Online or Face-to-Face Instruction

Abstract

How does a marketing department, particularly one in a university with open admissions, best teach required undergraduate courses? Because "one size does not fit all," we suggest allowing students the option of completing those courses either online or face-to-face. Here, we describe parallel online and face-to-face versions of a marketing research course offered at a land grant university. Although course performance, as measured by grade distributions, did not differ by self-selected delivery method, overall retention rates and student satisfaction did improve. The adoption of this teaching innovation in other universities is strongly recommended.