EdSurge reports enrollment in virtual schools continues to grow, but research by the nonprofit National Education Policy Center has reported that these types of programs may be less effective than traditional schools. Michael Barbour, who teaches instructional design at Touro University California, says students in brick-and-mortar schools tend to outperform those in online and blended learning (a combination of online and traditional learning) programs. He finds this biggest issue to be a reliance by online instruction on evaluation by multiple choice questions that don’t promote analysis or deeper learning.