Gap Between Online and In-Person Learning Narrows
Susan D’Agostino
July 13, 2022
Since the start of the pandemic, law school faculty members have gained proficiency in online teaching best practices and students have gained appreciation for hybrid and online learning options.
When the history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written, one takeaway may be that the crisis marked a positive turning point in which online learning in higher education gained more respect. To be sure, in the early days of the pandemic, few were satisfied with emergency remote instruction, even if teachers displayed “heroic levels of creativity” in the face of a global emergency. But as waves of the virus ebbed and flowed over time and one variant replaced another, faculty members adapted remote learning best practices into their courses. Many students subsequently discovered unexpected benefits in online learning, often leaving them asking for more.
Law students’ perceptions of the gap between online and in-person instruction has narrowed considerably since the start of the pandemic, according to a recent Gallup-AccessLex report. In 2021, approximately three-quarters (76 percent) of law students taking classes mostly or fully in person rated their programs as “excellent” or “good,” whereas only about half (51 percent) taking at least half of their classes online reported the same. Face-to-face student perceptions mostly held steady in 2022, when again approximately three-quarters (78 percent) rated their programs as “excellent” or “good.” But their hybrid and online counterparts made significant gains in 2022; 73 percent of hybrid students and 72 percent of those who were mostly or completely online held those same favorable opinions of their programs.
