IS PRESENCE PART OF THE GRADE, PROFESSOR? Higher Education Students' performance in E-learning
This research's objective is to assess whether there is a difference in the performance of higher education students of e-learning modality and to identify the average differences in results obtained in standardized tests. Distance learning in higher education has expanded in recent years. In 2019, the number of enrolled students reaches 2.45 million, for 4529 courses. The number of distance learning undergraduate courses more than doubled between 2017 and 2019. The supply increase of vacancies and courses through the modality questioned the performance of these students. The concern with the quality of the teaching and learning process has encouraged studies to evaluate educational results, however, the results of students in this modality are still under explored. The relative scarcity of studies can be associated with the legislation that recently changed the conditions for offering this modality. It became possible to have a larger number of courses in different areas of knowledge offered in both modalities, in person and at a distance, enabling comparative analyses. In this research, the database used includes more than 1 million students, who took the ENADE test in 2017, 2018 and 2019. This database includes all courses that have both modalities and have been evaluated by INEP. The sample analyzed here considers the results achieved in the standardized tests and the socioeconomic characteristics of these students. Two types of empirical exercises are used to estimate the average treatment effect associated with the scores obtained in the standardized tests: the ordinary least squares methods and the propensity score matching. The results indicate that, in both methods, the differences are statistically significant and favourable for on-site courses. Meanwhile, the magnitude of these differences is small, ranging from 0.5% to 3.5% less for EAD students' grades.