The question of equivalence between an online course and a traditional classroom has yielded ample research over the years. However, very little of this research includes college level introductory physics. Only one study explored physics at the whole-class level rather than specific course components such as a single lab or a homework platform. In this work, we compared the failure rate, grade distribution, and withdrawal rates in an introductory undergraduate physics course across several learning modes including traditional face-to-face instruction, synchronous video instruction, and online classes. All alternative hypotheses were supported in this study, with statistically significant differences found for student failure rates, grade distribution, and withdrawal rates. Students taking the course from home (synchronous video or online) had a lower failure rate than students who took the class in person (in-person classroom or synchronous video classroom) learning modes. Statistically significant differences were found for grade distributions between the online course and in-person learning modes (in-person classroom or synchronous video classroom), with online students receiving a higher percentage of As than all other modes examined. Additionally, the difference in grade distribution between the synchronous video learning modes (home and classroom) were statistically significant. Finally, student withdrawal rates were lowest for students who took the class in person (in-person classroom and synchronous video classroom) than the other two modes of learning
