Virtual lectures versus face-to-face lectures: a four-year study exploring the impact on students' results

Many of the subjects in the ITSM discipline at Swinburne University, Lilydale have replaced the traditional mode of delivering lectures face-to-face with virtual lectures available on the Internet. This paper explores the impact this has had on final exam raw scores for students in one of these subjects by comparing two years of face-to-face lectures with two years of virtual lectures. Interestingly the statistics over the four-year period demonstrate no significant effect on the students’ exam raw scores. It would appear that the transition to virtual lectures has had little impact on the academic results of students. This paper will address these findings in more detail whilst considering some of the variables that may have influenced the results.