Success and retention of community college students in anatomy hybrid versus face-to-face courses

Abstract

As community colleges are increasingly offering distance education courses, it is of a great interest to examine student performance specifically in science courses. The objective of this study was to examine the student success and retention rates in anatomy courses that were offered face-to-face (F2F) compared to hybrid offerings. In the F2F courses, both lecture and lab sessions were on campus whereas the hybrid version involved only on-campus labs while the lectures were online. The results indicated that the student success and retention rates were significantly lower in the hybrid compared to the F2F anatomy courses. These results indicate that further studies are needed to identify key factors that cause low performance in anatomy and perhaps other science courses when offered as hybrid courses at community colleges. This information is needed to close the achievement gap among community college science students, particularly minority and nontraditional students. It is more likely that most nontraditional and minority students begin their college experience at community colleges and a lack of success in their science classes will place them at higher risk to drop out of college and may deter them from continuing in the sciences. The objective of this study was to examine the student success and retention rates in anatomy courses that were offered face-to-face (F2F) compared to hybrid offerings. The results indicated that the student success and retention rates were significantly lower in the hybrid compared to the F2F anatomy courses.