Comparative Essay: Traditional Learning vs Online Learning

Running head: COMPARATIVE ESSAY
COMPARATIVE ESSAY
Name of the student:
Name of the university;
Author note:

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COMPARATIVE ESSAY
Student in the modern generation are often seen to suffer from confusion when they try to
take admission in a new course of degree or diploma or supporting courses. They suffer from
confusion between attending regular classes in traditional learning programs or online learning
medium that is the most modern method of education. Even researchers and educators also get
into debates and arguments when they try to estimate the benefits and disadvantages of both the
form of education (Clark & Mayer, 2016). This assignment will mainly try to highlight the
different aspects of both the mediums of education and understand the contributing factors for
arguments on this topic in the present generation.
Online learning helps in saving time as well as money in comparison to that of
traditional learning. It helps in saving time and money that are required for commuting to
traditional classrooms. It also helps in saving huge amount of energy that is drained in travelling
to colleges and universities and completing back-to-back classes (Murray & Perrez, 2015). Even
students have to wait in traditional learning medium in universities if they have time gap
between two periods of classes. Such is not the case of the online learning medium. As students
can undertake this medium of learning from their homes only, it saves both time and money
spent at traditional education sites.
Online mode of learning is also considered more flexible in nature and is more
convenient in comparison to that of traditional learning. Participants in an interview in a study
was seen to prefer online mode of leaning as they stated that it can help them to develop new
skills even when they are working part time or full time in other organizations. Even those
individuals who are taking care of the family can also get engaged in online learning medium
and develop skills and knowledge in the time they get for themselves (Furio et al., 2015). This
flexibility is not possible in the traditional learning medium. The latter requires individuals to

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COMPARATIVE ESSAY
attend fixed number of classes at fixed timings, which might not align with the daily schedule,
and timing of the busy individuals. Therefore, online traditional learning is often referred to as
being more convenient and flexible.
One important aspect had been identified by Kauffman (2015) in his research. The
researchers had stated that online education model could be useful for professionals who require
development of a specific skill for enhancing their career growth. This will help the
individuals to learn what they need in the job instated of learning analytical or critical skills. For
instances, individuals can join the any online learning program for leaning special programs like
JavaScript that might help in enhancing knowledge level and accordingly help the individuals to
be promoted to next levels.
Traditional education is again preferred by many individuals because it helps in ensuring
a disciplined life and infuses motivation. Researchers are of the opinion that structured
scheduling of attending classes everyday and having face-to-face interactions with mentors and
professors can help students to remain dedicated to their tasks and goals. Traditional learning
enables students to remember their upcoming assignments that prevent any form of
procrastination in students opting for this course (Nguyen, 2015). The word “procrastination”
and “delay” had been repeated a number of times in the broad-ended interviews conducted of
participants who are undertaking online education sessions. As the online courses require
students to take their own lead and prepare for their assignments, often lack of motivation is
found to be associated with their approaches. Often they are seen to procrastinate their
assignment to the last minute due to their in-disciplined approach towards the completion of the
study hours of the online course (De, 2018). Therefore, many of the students and professors
argue traditional courses to be better mediums of learning.