Abstract:

The technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for measuring the relative efficiency  of  operating decision-making units  (ODMU’s) that are similar in terms of their Outputs  and inputs  has been widely used in many applications: in hospitals, higher education sector, the military.  In this paper the ODMU’s are the delivery methods (face to face and online). This paper proposes an application of the DEA , an efficient frontier technique, to identify an ODMU that is relatively inefficient  by comparing it to similar ODMU regarded as efficient, rather than trying to associate an ODMU’s performance with  some statistical measurement (s) that may not be applicable to that ODMU.

The method does not necessarily identify the ODMU’s that are relatively inefficient because the efficiency index of 1 does not lead to the conclusion that the delivery method being analyzed is relatively inefficient. Indeed, any method that has the largest output on any one of the output measures cannot be judged as relatively inefficient. Rather, the purpose of the study is to identify the delivery method with the lowest efficiency scores, as such method will have the weakest return on the allocation of their teaching resources. It is expected that such methods would benefit the most from a revision of their contents or delivery methods (techniques or approach), so as to lead to improved student learning outcomes. The relative performance score of the course is measured based on the performance of the students who completed the course, with respect to how well they were prepared for taking the course and how well they do in subsequent course(s) for which the one used in the study serves as a prerquisite.