An Inventory of Learning at a Distance in Economics

Abstract

This article examines the variety of institutions offering economics courses via the Internet in the fall 2000 semester and the methods of instruction used in those courses. Both 2- and 4-year colleges offer courses via the Internet and in about equal numbers. Research universities lag behind teaching institutions in web course offerings. Most institutions teaching economics via the Internet are located in metropolitan areas with 250,000 inhabitants or more, and very few courses are offered by institutions in the plains states. Streaming audio and video are relatively uncommon, used in less than 20% of the courses, but 76% involved what the instructor considered to be active learning techniques. There is no statistically significant correlation between use of active learning techniques and use of streamed video or audio.