This study examined the question of the relationship between the modality used to administer a final exam and the student outcomes achieved on the final exam in online university courses. This question directly addressed the issues of 1) the ongoing and dynamic growth of online university offerings and 2) the need for online universities to employ processes that will scale to allow for effective management of large numbers of online course takers. The study was a large-scale study that incorporated data from 100 online courses and over 1800 students across the full range of undergraduate course offering at the institution studied. The results indicate that in the university environment studied there was not a statistically significant difference between the average final exam score obtained irrespective of the modality used to administer the exam. The results of the study indicated that the use of sophisticated online exam software is a viable alternative to the use of proctored final exams. However, it is not necessarily sufficient to merely provide an online final exam. The environment studied also chose to take a number of measures to assure the academic rigor of the online exam and to minimize the ability of the student to access other online resources while taking the exam.
">This study examined the question of the relationship between the modality used to administer a final exam and the student outcomes achieved on the final exam in online university courses. This question directly addressed the issues of 1) the ongoing and dynamic growth of online university offerings and 2) the need for online universities to employ processes that will scale to allow for effective management of large numbers of online course takers. The study was a large-scale study that incorporated data from 100 online courses and over 1800 students across the full range of undergraduate course offering at the institution studied. The results indicate that in the university environment studied there was not a statistically significant difference between the average final exam score obtained irrespective of the modality used to administer the exam. The results of the study indicated that the use of sophisticated online exam software is a viable alternative to the use of proctored final exams. However, it is not necessarily sufficient to merely provide an online final exam. The environment studied also chose to take a number of measures to assure the academic rigor of the online exam and to minimize the ability of the student to access other online resources while taking the exam.