Modeling undergraduates' selection of course modality: A large sample, multi-discipline study

Scholarly understanding is limited with regard to what influences students' choice to take a particular course fully online or in-person. We surveyed 650 undergraduates at a public Canadian university who were enrolled in courses that were offered in both modalities during the same semester, for roughly the same tuition cost. The courses spanned a wide range of disciplines, from archaeology to computing science. Twenty-five variables were gauged, covering areas including students' personal circumstances, their competence in the language of instruction, previous experience with online courses, grade expectations, and psychological variables including their regulation of their time and study environment, work avoidance and social goal orientation. Two logistic regression models (of modality of enrolment and modality of preference) both had good fit to the data, each correctly classifying roughly 75% of cases using different variables. Implications for instructional design and enrolment management are discussed.