Face to face versus distance education parenting course: Formats assessment

The goal of this study was to examine the differences in participants' affective and cognitive learning in face to face (F2F) versus distance education (DE) course formats of the Common Sense ParentingRTM (CSP) program. Fifty adults (19 years and older) living in the United States, (New York, Florida, Indianapolis and Nebraska) were enrolled in classes for adults of children ages 6-16 offered in both F2F (n=25) and as DE (n=25) formats. The CSP content, training materials, instructor's guide and assessment methods were closely matched within the format types to reduce variations in the sophistication between F2F versus DE formats. Participants completed the following measurements: a Parenting Adolescent Report of Children's Abilities scale also know as the PARCA and a version of original Affective Learning Measurement (ALM) McCroskey (1994), the CSP class evaluation, plus weekly review tests, a final parenting test and skill practice assessment sheets. The results showed no significant difference between DE versus F2F participants' perception of cognitive learning or affective learning. However, significant differences were shown in actual cognitive learning on the final parenting test and on participant's CSP class evaluations.Keywords. Distance education format, Face to face format, cognitive learning, affective learning, actual learning and Common Sense ParentingRTM...