Zooming to Class?: Experimental Evidence on College Students' Online Learning during COVID-19

Michael Kofoed, Lucas Gebhart (), Dallas Gilmore () and Ryan Moschitto ()
Additional contact information
Lucas Gebhart: U.S. Military Academy
Dallas Gilmore: U.S. Military Academy
Ryan Moschitto: U.S. Military Academy

No 14356, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: COVID-19 shifted schools and colleges to online instruction with little causal evidence of outcomes. In the fall of 2020, we randomized 551 West Point students in a required Introductory Economics course across twelve instructors to either an online or in-person class. Final grades for online students dropped by 0.215 standard deviations; a result apparent in both assignments and exams and largest for academically at-risk students. A post-course survey finds that online students struggled to concentrate in class and felt less connected to their instructors and peers. We find that the shift to online education had negative results for learning.

Keywords: randomized control trial; COVID-19; online learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I21 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2021-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Published - published in: American Economic Review: Insights, 2024, 6 (3), 324-340

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Journal Article: Zooming to Class? Experimental Evidence on College Students' Online Learning during COVID-19 (2024)
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