2010

More and more students are earning their doctoral degrees in counseling from online colleges and universities. Furthermore, the recession has created a major need for re-educating workers who have lost their jobs. It seems likely that demand for online coursework will only increase. According to Benton (2009), while the Department of Education confirmed that online courses can be as effective in achieving measurable learning outcomes as traditional, face-to-face courses, a study from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities shows that 70% of the 10,000 faculty members surveyed believe that online courses are either “inferior” or “somewhat inferior” to traditional courses. Professors who have taught online courses are more positive about the approach yet 48% are likewise convinced that online courses are not as good as faceto-face teaching (Benton, 2009). Fortunately, a new study contradicts the perception that cheating is more widespread in online classes, finding that students in virtual courses were less likely to cheat than their face-to-face peers (Parry, 2009a). Online instruction is an important tool to assist instructors in accomplishing their goal of preparing skilled and efficient counselors; therefore, it is important to understand what works well for students and faculty and where improvements are needed.