Today, I submitted final grades for this semester. It’s been a hectic experience, with the coronavirus forcing me to move the last third of my semester online. I’m glad to put the experience behind me, and I look forward to teaching in person again in the fall.

No one asked for the sudden transition to online learning, and it wasn’t an easy change. I am not trained in online teaching, and most of my students chose to registered for a face-to-face section instead of the online sections of the same classes that were offered. So, when an instructor and students who self-selected into an in-person course were forced into an online mode, it was not ideal.

I watched the transition carefully, and an interesting pattern developed. My students who were doing well before the coronavirus hit my university did just fine when the class was moved online. The students who were struggling before the shift online struggled more afterwards. This was apparent whether I examined test scores, homework scores, or participation.

In other words, without the structure of a face-to-face course, the high performing students did just fine. But struggling students did even worse than before. The variability in class performance increased when students were thrust into an online learning environment.

This experience reminded me of the principle of the Matthew Effect, which occurs when everyone in a population is exposed to an intervention. Such treatments usually improve low scores a bit, but improve high scores a lot. As a result, the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” increases under universal interventions. This is a well-known phenomenon in educational research, and many scholars have discussed it (e.g., Ceci & Papierno, 2005).

This semester, the universal “treatment” was online learning, and it increased variability in the class performance of my students. Those who were struggling (whether because of family commitments, lack of motivation, or any other cause) had those struggles amplified, while those who were competent had the causes of their competency amplified. In other words, online learning made my students the same as they were before, only more so.

References

Ceci, S. J., & Papierno, P. B. (2005). The rhetoric and reality of gap closing: When the “have-nots” gain but the “haves” gain even more. American Psychologist, 60(2), 149-160. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.60.2.149