Adult learners’ perceptions of distance education

Abstract

Research informing adult education teachers’ didactic practices in distance education is scarce. Approaching the adult learner’s perspectives on how distance education is perceived is key to informing future initiatives. This study explores adult learners’ perception of distance education, concentrating on aspects such as, social presence, course structure, and perceived learning and satisfaction. A survey was distributed to teachers ( n = 78) in five schools organising adult distance education. Findings show that teacher accessibility and course structure correlated positively with social presence and perceived learning and satisfaction. Overall, adult learners are satisfied with their distance teaching. A challenge facing adult distance education is to create a sense of social presence despite the high demand for flexibility. Thus, we explored learner perceptions of benefits and challenges in distance education and structured these into social, cognitive, spatio-temporal, emotional, and technical dimensions. Findings reveal that one challenge in the social dimension was a lack of connection with peers, and a benefit in the cognitive dimension referred to autonomy and self-regulation. These findings are important as educational institutions and policymakers may strive for high flexibility, which in turn may lead to lower group cohesion and a lack of social presence.