An Empirical Investigation of Factors Affecting Web-Based and Face-to-Face Student Satisfactions with Course Website

Course Websites have been considered an increasingly important part of online as well as face-to-face education delivery formats. While a vast body of literature has been devoted to comparison of the online and traditional face-to-face courses, little research of student satisfaction with respect to course Websites differentiated between the online and face-to-face students. In order to improve quality of course Websites, the effort was aimed at identifying important predictors of the satisfaction of online students and face-to-face students. This study conducted Fisher’s z transformation and test to compare correlation coefficients of each of Website features and the student satisfaction between two groups of student. Williams’ T-test was performed to compare correlation coefficients, with the student satisfaction, of different Website features within one group, online or face-to-face students. The results showed that online students and face-to-face students had different focuses on Website features. Educational administrators, instructors and system developers might accordingly apply limited resources on improvement of most important features to efficiently increase student satisfaction.