A Comparison between Differences in the Effects of Longitudinal Effects of Network Latency on STEM and non-STEM Students

As enrollment in online courses increases faster than the overall enrollments in higher education, the
differences in learning styles and academic disciplines need to be identified. Further, the focus on the
demand for students pursuing degrees in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM) has gained prominence in the past decade. An experiment was conducted to study the
interaction of objective learning and subjective learning, objective learning and enjoyment, and
subjective learning and enjoyment on the longitudinal effects of network latency on students who were
classified as STEM majors or non-STEM majors (humanities and social sciences). The findings
indicate that students from different majors responded differently by the time students have
progressed to their senior year in reference to their learning styles and sensitivity to network delays
than it was when they were freshmen. The study suggests that the accumulation of experience and
choice of major are important factors in mitigating the effects of network delay on learning. While
students were actively engaged the “Network latency problem”, and the students were given an
opportunity to contemplate their actions, and make an intellectual decision, they were not given the
opportunity to express these actions in their own words. And while this experimental leaning model
did take in to account simulations, it does not apply to all different learning styles such as
memorization. And this might have a significant effect on the results of STEM vs non-STEM majors.
The use of online education must be appropriately understood to enhance decisions about its
application and its development.