Abstract
A high quality review of the distance learning literature from 1992-1999 concluded that most of the research on distance learning had serious methodological flaws. This paper presents the results of a small-scale replication of that review. A sample of 66 articles was drawn from three leading distance education journals. Those articles were categorized by study type, and the experimental or quasi-experimental articles were analyzed in terms of their research methodologies. The results indicated that the sample of post-1999 articles had the same methodological flaws as the sample of pre-1999 articles: most participants were not randomly selected, extraneous variables and reactive effects were not controlled for, and the validity and reliability of measures were not reported.
Highlights
In April of 1999, The Institute for Higher Education Policy released an influential review of the distance learning literature entitled, What’s the Difference?: A Review of Contemporary Research on the Effectiveness on Distance Learning in Higher Education [hereafter – What’s the Difference] (Phipps and Merisotis)
That review, which was based on a large sample of the distance learning literature, concluded that a considerable amount of research on the effectiveness of distance learning has been conducted, “there is a relative paucity of true, original research dedicated to explaining or predicting phenomena related to distance learning” (p. 2)
In order to compare proportions of article types between the current review and the previous review (i.e., What’s the Difference), Table 3 shows the results of the current review when the other category is removed and when the quasi-experimental and experimental categories are collapsed into a single experimental category
Summary
In April of 1999, The Institute for Higher Education Policy released an influential review of the distance learning literature entitled, What’s the Difference?: A Review of Contemporary Research on the Effectiveness on Distance Learning in Higher Education [hereafter – What’s the Difference] (Phipps and Merisotis). Many of the studies included in What’s the Difference suggested that distance learning compares favorably with classroom-based instruction (Russell, 1999; see Hammond, 1997; Martin and Rainey, 1993; Sounder, 1993), a closer investigation by the authors of What’s the Difference revealed that the quality of those studies was questionable and that the results of the body of the literature on distance learning were largely inconclusive. Much of the research does not control for extraneous variables and, cannot show cause and effect
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