UH-01 Helping Professionals Received Their Master's Online - Does It Matter?
Abstract
Over the past few years, there has been tremendous growth of online education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than two thirds of all colleges and universities offer online courses and a majority of institutions offer full academic programs online.
Many degree seeking students choose online programs because they are typically more flexible and convenient than traditional higher education programs. Furthermore, the global pandemic has sparked an increased interest in online programs among those who may normally choose to attend brick-and-mortar institutions.
During the pandemic, institutions of higher learning were forced to move courses online, and many continue to maintain these online programs in hopes of stabilizing declining enrollment due to the pandemic. As more students enroll in online degree programs, it is important to understand how online degree earners are perceived within their occupation. Most of the research examining the perception of online learning has focused on business-related fields like accounting. Most employers who were surveyed about their opinions of job readiness when comparing graduates from online programs to those in traditional programs indicated that there is still a preference for candidates who have earned their degrees from a traditional program.
Employers who have earned an online degree themselves are more likely to rate online programs as being more rigorous and are more likely to hire a candidate who has earned an online degree compared to employers without online degree experience; however, there is still a preference for candidates with traditional degrees. It is unclear if these findings would generalize to other occupations, especially those dealing with the helping profession field like nursing or mental health.
The current study will examine if the education mode (online or traditional) would impact participants’ perceptions of nurses and therapists. Based on previous findings, it is predicted that a) participants would prefer candidates who obtained their degree from a traditional program rather than an online program; b) there will be an interaction between occupation and education mode, with participants preferring nurses who have earned a degree from a traditional program as opposed to an online program, but this effect will not be true for therapists, with participants showing no preference for the therapists’ educational background. Implications of these findings will be explored.
UH-01 Helping Professionals Received Their Master's Online - Does It Matter?
Over the past few years, there has been tremendous growth of online education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than two thirds of all colleges and universities offer online courses and a majority of institutions offer full academic programs online.
Many degree seeking students choose online programs because they are typically more flexible and convenient than traditional higher education programs. Furthermore, the global pandemic has sparked an increased interest in online programs among those who may normally choose to attend brick-and-mortar institutions.
During the pandemic, institutions of higher learning were forced to move courses online, and many continue to maintain these online programs in hopes of stabilizing declining enrollment due to the pandemic. As more students enroll in online degree programs, it is important to understand how online degree earners are perceived within their occupation. Most of the research examining the perception of online learning has focused on business-related fields like accounting. Most employers who were surveyed about their opinions of job readiness when comparing graduates from online programs to those in traditional programs indicated that there is still a preference for candidates who have earned their degrees from a traditional program.
Employers who have earned an online degree themselves are more likely to rate online programs as being more rigorous and are more likely to hire a candidate who has earned an online degree compared to employers without online degree experience; however, there is still a preference for candidates with traditional degrees. It is unclear if these findings would generalize to other occupations, especially those dealing with the helping profession field like nursing or mental health.
The current study will examine if the education mode (online or traditional) would impact participants’ perceptions of nurses and therapists. Based on previous findings, it is predicted that a) participants would prefer candidates who obtained their degree from a traditional program rather than an online program; b) there will be an interaction between occupation and education mode, with participants preferring nurses who have earned a degree from a traditional program as opposed to an online program, but this effect will not be true for therapists, with participants showing no preference for the therapists’ educational background. Implications of these findings will be explored.