Comparing the Student's Supportive Recourses in Electronic Courses with On Campus Courses

With exponential increasing trend of using virtual courses in higher education, most universities have provided this kind of education for their students. The lack of face to face interaction between professors and students in this type of education caused that many types of supports including human based resources and non-human resources would be needed. The main purpose of the present paper was to identify and compare the types and sources of supportive resources from student's viewpoints of electronic and on campus universities. For this purpose, 160 graduated students from Isfahan University including virtual and non-virtual students were selected by using stratified random sampling method. Data was gathered by using a self-made questionnaire which was based on literature review. Content validity was confirmed by experts. Alpha-Cronbach’s coefficient was estimated 0.84 for its reliability. The data analyzed by using frequencies and percentages and chi-square test. The results indicated that in non-virtual courses, professors are the most important support for students. While in virtual courses, students significantly have used supports from teachers’ assistants, professors and students from other universities for doing their educational home works (P<0/05). In terms of using non-human resources, especially using media for education, there was an also significant difference between students in electronic courses with on campus students.