The Effect of Time Spent Online on Student Achievement in Online Economics and Finance Courses

摘要

This article studies the determinants of academic achievement in online courses in economics and finance. The authors use the online tracking feature in Blackboard (Campus Edition) to retrieve the real time that each student spent in the course for the entire semester and to analyze the impact of time spent online, prior grade point average (GPA), and some demographic characteristics of students on their final grades. Both time and GPA are significant determinants of the final grade: Higher GPAs and longer times spent online are associated with higher grades.