A Study of the Achievement of Medical and Pharmay Students in the Online Versus Traditional ESP Course

Online education is one of the fastest growing modes of teaching which afford great flexibility in terms of how, when and where students can learn. This is particularly relevant in higher education since students might often need to manipulate their own learning. A number of studies have compared learning outcomes across online courses with traditional ones (e.g., Alavi, Yoo, and Vogel, 1997; Hiltz, 1993; Hiltz and Johnson, 1990; Leinder and Jarvenpaa, 1993; Piccoli, Ahmad and Ives, 2001).These and other research studies have shown that there are no significant differences between two modes of delivery. English language instruction in general and ESP in particular have benefited from such developments around the world. This research was conducted in order to compare the achievement of the participants toward an online new course. This is the first online course in ESP in the Ministry of Health. The course was developed according to the results of a needs analysis questionnaire. We conducted the study. The results correspond to some previous studies such as those of Russel (1999). The statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant difference in achievement of students who were learning English through the two modes of instruction.