Abstract
Descriptions of distance students in the literature are robust. Yet when speaking about students outside of a national context, nuance is lost by the failure to identify the complexity in borderless higher education. The global student body is often too broadly categorized as “international” when in reality, this can be further refined to produce two additional classifications that more appropriately identify and describe a hitherto invisible phenomenon: the expatriate and transnational distance student. Utilizing respondent-driven sampling, student demographic and academic program data were collected using these two operational definitions. The resulting data suggests a potential profile for the expatriate/transnational distance student phenomenon as manifested in South Korea, along with broader demographic and program characteristics. As a nascent phenomenon and introductory inquiry, the research is limited in scope with the intention of a) establishing a taxonomy for the distance education community, b) a practical method for investigation, and c) avenues for further research such as student characteristics, motivation, attrition/retention, etc. Such insight would assist policy/guidelines for universities, their programs, and instructors.
Highlights
Online distance education has grown tremendously in the 21st century (Allen & Seaman, 2013; Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek, 2012)
A far more detailed presentation of the demographics is presented in tables B and C in the appendices B and C
The most recent data published by the Ministry of Justice detailing Korean immigration statistics does not report the gender distribution of visa types, they do provide entry numbers by gender with a majority being women at 55.6%, and by gender and age with there being nearly double the amount of women entering Korea between the ages of 20-29 at 1,060 versus 1,908 respectively, and a slightly higher amount of women between the ages of 3039 at 1,243 to 1,452 respectively (MoJ, 2016, p. 24)
Summary
Online distance education has grown tremendously in the 21st century (Allen & Seaman, 2013; Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek, 2012). Two that stand out in absentia, are the expatriate and transnational distance student (Appendix A). There is more involved in the distance education enterprise beyond the virtual classroom from student support services at an administrative level (e.g., academic advising, registration, student support) to specialized services unique to/required by the particular host country of the expatriate/transnational student (e.g., apostilles). This gap in knowledge was the impetus for conducting an exploratory study into these two types of distance students to begin the conversation by recognizing who they are
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