ORIGINAL ARTICLE Effectiveness of learning in online academic courses compared with face‐to‐face courses in higher education Tal Soffer | Rafi Nachmias School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Correspondence Tal Soffer, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B 39040, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. Email: talsofer@post.tau.ac.il Abstract This study examined the effectiveness of 3 online courses compared with the same 3 courses in a face‐to‐face (F2F) format, which had the same characteristics (e.g., the same instructor and final exam content and place). Effectiveness was examined by utilizing a wide range of variables, including 2 objective measures (N = 968): grades and completion rate; and 9 subjective measures (N = 360): 7 measures include instructional aspects (course structure, learning content, lessons watched, assignments, communication), engagement, and satisfaction. Findings indicate signifi- cant differences between online and F2F courses in most of the examined variables. Students in the online courses reported better understanding of the course structure, better communica- tion with the course staff, watching the videos lessens more, and higher engagement and satisfac- tion. Students in the F2F courses reported better contribution of the learning content. Students' final grades were higher in the online courses, and no differences were found in the completion rate. The findings suggest that in many of the examined effectiveness aspects, online courses are as effective as, or more effective than, F2F courses. Interpretations of the findings are discussed. KEYWORDS course effectiveness, learning outcomes, online learning, online courses, students' perceptions 1 | INTRODUCTION Online courses are not a new phenomenon in higher education. How- ever, in recent years, we have witnessed a rapid growth in online aca- demic courses, which are offered by higher education institutions (Toven‐Lindsey, Rhoads, & Lozano, 2015). New technologies offer advanced learning platforms that provide suitable and easier environ- ments for implementing online courses along with cost savings (Farinella, Hobbs, & Weeks, 2000; Garbett, 2011; Kim & Bonk, 2006; Pape, 2010), which make them more attractive to university administrators and students. In fact, students are much more likely to experience an online learning environment now than they were in the past (Tichavsky, Hunt, Driscoll, & Jicha, 2015), with 32% of all enrolled students in 2011 having taken at least one online course (Allen & Seaman, 2014). Indeed, decision makers at academic institu- tions consider online academic courses to be a critical long‐term strat- egy (Allen & Seaman, 2015; Parker, Lenhart, & Moore, 2011) for improving teaching and providing access to a wide range of audiences (Macfadyen & Dawson, 2010; Roby, Ashe, Singh, & Clark, 2013). How- ever, along with the expansion of online courses within academic curricula in higher education, there is an ongoing debate about the quality and effectiveness of such courses compared with face‐to‐face (F2F) courses (Allen & Seaman, 2015; Hannafin, Hill, Oliver, Glazer, & Sharma, 2003) and a lack of compelling quantitative evidence of learn- ing effectiveness (Lack, 2013). Indeed, calls were made to explore and identify if and how the formats of online courses are different in their effectiveness in regard to students' learning and satisfaction (Crawford‐Ferre & Wiest, 2012; Nguyen, 2015), in order to better address teaching and learning processes (Lim, Morris, & Kupritz, 2007; Song, Singleton, Hill, & Koh, 2004). The current study adds to the existing literature in two ways: First, it examines differences between three F2F and online courses across various disciplines, which provides a relatively large sample size that conclusions can be inferred from, and second, it expands the scope of the term “effectiveness” . Specifically, effectiveness of learning in this study was examined by a large scope of variables: learning out- comes (achievements and completion rate), perceived instructional aspects (e.g., course structure, course content learning contribution, assignment assessments, and communication perspectives), perceived engagement, and satisfaction. Received: 9 May 2017 Revised: 30 November 2017 Accepted: 25 February 2018 DOI: 10.1111/jcal.12258 J Comput Assist Learn. 2018;1–10. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jcal 1