Diminishing the Gap of Learning Performance in Higher Education by E-learning

In order to explore the effect of the school environment and the students\´ individual characteristics in relation to their learning performance, this study conducts an experiment to observe two groups of students - one from an academic university and the other from a technical institute - taught by the same teacher under the same course and the same on-line learning system. Findings indicated that: (1) the categorization of advanced education institutions in Taiwan indeed created a "differentiating" effect; (2) In asynchronous online learning, school type does affect how students learn and their learning outcomes; (3) In similar learning environments, an asynchronous online learning environment will lower the impact of the school\´s learning and administrative environment, and personal background on students\´ learning environment interactive models, thus narrowing the gap between dominant and fringe groups