Webinars in Higher Education and Professional Training: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

Publication date: Available online 7 October 2019Source: Educational Research ReviewAuthor(s): Andreas Gegenfurtner, Christian EbnerAbstractDigital learning environments are increasingly popular in higher education and professional training. Teaching and learning via webinars, and web conferencing more broadly, represents one widely used approach. Webinars are defined as web-based seminars, in which participants and facilitators communicate live over the Internet across distant geographical locations using shared virtual platforms and interact ubiquitously and synchronously in real time via voice over IP technology and web camera equipment. In the past, studies have reported mixed evidence concerning the effectiveness of webinars in promoting student achievement. As a remedy, this systematic literature review and meta-analysis cumulates observed effect sizes from previously published randomized controlled trials and corrects artifactual variance induced by sampling error. The research questions were: How effective are webinars in promoting student achievement? And which characteristics moderate webinar effectiveness? The findings suggest that webinars were slightly more effective than control conditions (online asynchronous learning management systems and offline face-to-face classroom instruction), but the differences were trivial in size. Differences were moderated by webinar, participant, achievement, and publication characteristics. This meta-analysis is the first to syst...

Source: Educational Research Review - October 10, 2019 Category: Child Development Source Type: research