Relationship Between Use of Online Support Materials and Student Performance in an Introductory Finance Course

The authors examined the relationship between student online activity, including access to specific course materials, and performance in a traditional face-to-face introductory finance course that a class Web site supported. The authors used 6 measures: (a) total hits, (b) hit consistency, (c) number of unique files that the students accessed, (d) accesses to homework solutions, (e) accesses to PowerPoint slides, and (f) accesses to exam solutions. Results indicated that access to homework solutions and, to lesser extent, hit consistency, were both positively related to student performance. In addition, results showed that access to specific files, rather than access to online course materials in general, was associated with better student performance.