Distance Learning Context Research Articles

How does a STEM Access module prepare adult learners to succeed in undergraduate science?

ABSTRACTThis article explores the impact of a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Access module on the progression of students to undergraduate Science. Drawing on the Widening Participation (WP) literature, this research investigated the experience of adult learners from disadvantaged backgrounds taking their first steps into higher education (HE). A mixed methods institutional case study was conducted, drawing on extensive survey data and interviews with students and tutors. Key findings included: enhanced student understanding of how to use tutor support; improvement in the skills and confidence of students in relation to maths, as a result of an embedded interdisciplinary curriculum; and an uplift in student study skills. This study was undertaken in a distance learning context, addressing issues in entry-level STEM, but the conclusions are applicable to other HE settings.

Development of Graduates’ Attributes in Chemistry within an Open Distance Learning (ODL) Environment: Unisa’s Experience

ABSTRACTDiscipline-specific knowledge and associated technical skills as well as generic skills have represented distinct and separate aspects of chemical sciences in university studies (linear training). In addition to technical skills gained through laboratory training, employers now require a soft skill set such as strengths in analytical thinking, problem-solving, written and oral communication, and collaboration. These skills require further integration with the human qualities needed to remain resilient to changing conditions and they do not come naturally, but through training. Since community engagement forms an integral part of tuition or learning and research, the the Department of Chemistry at the University of South Africa (UNISA) needed to blend these components to enhance and strengthen the requisite graduate attributes. The authors discuss the strategies employed by the department on how to inculcate these graduate attributes into modern-day chemistry students within an open distance learning (ODL) context.

Utilizing synchronous discussions to create an engaged classroom in online executive education

Many universities are increasing the use of online executive education which provides greater flexibility for students and instructors. While student engagement can be difficult to achieve in traditional classroom settings, the Distance Learning (DL) context inherently impedes student engagement and provides unique obstacles to the desired outcome of student engagement. Therefore, in this paper, I present a best practices approach to synchronous class discussions that can be implemented to increase student engagement in online executive education.

Reflections on the Supervision of Postgraduate Research: The Students’ Voices in an Open Distance Learning (ODL) Context

Since the dawn of democracy in 1994 there has been a proliferation of postgraduate programmes aimed at responding to the social, economic and political needs of the country. This has led to an increase in the number of students enrolling for postgraduate programmes in South Africa. Some students successfully complete their studies, while others eventually drop out without attaining their chosen qualifications owing to various factors they encounter on their research journey. This study sought to determine postgraduate students’ experiences in terms of the educational and research experience at Unisa; the support services and funding; quality of access to facilities; and initiation into the community of researchers. Theoretically, the study was underpinned by ergonomics theory. To answer the research questions, the study followed a concurrent mixed method design. The study’s participants were 78 postgraduate students at Unisa who had volunteered to be part of the study. A self-constructed questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics while qualitative data used inductive thematic analysis. The findings indicate that students have a variety of experiences, both negative and positive, in their postgraduate studies.

Open, Flexible, and Distance Learning: Changes to the Journal, Changes in the Field

Change and more change. This editorial, like the last, notes several changes happening within the Journal and in the wider context of open, flexible, and distance learning. A quick look at some of the social commentary on change provides the backdrop for events and decisions described more fully in this issue of the journal. Changes to the editorial team and Editorial Advisory Board are announced and the papers for this issue are introduced. Ideas to identify change, manage change and live with change are set within the world of open, flexible, and distance learning.

Use of online interactive tools in an open distance learning context: Health studies students' perspective*

Background: Open distance learning (ODL) institutions provide educational challenges with specific reference to the training of nurses. They have adopted online technologies to facilitate teaching and learning. However it is observed that most nurses do not use or minimally use tools such as a discussion forum for online interaction to facilitate teaching and learning.Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine how the discussion forum as an online interactive tool be used in an ODL institution to enhance student-to-student and student-to-lecturer online interactions.Design: Quantitative and descriptive in nature.Method: No sampling was done. An online questionnaire was sent to all 410 second and third years Health Services Management students around the world registered with a specific ODL institution during the second semester. Eighty seven students responded to the questionnaire. Data analysis was done quantitatively and descriptively in the form of diagrams.Results: The findings indicated that 84.9% of students own computers, and 100% own cellular phones, but only 3.8% participated in online discussion forum. Some students indicated that they were technologically challenged. Some lecturers interact minimally online and are not supportive to them. The institution does not give them the support they need to acquire the necessary skills to utilise these technologies.Conclusion: The article suggests that lecturers, active interaction in an online discussion forum as a way of supporting students, are fundamental to effective teaching and learning.The university should consider providing intensive mentoring to students to enable them to utilise the available technologies optimally.

Use of online interactive tools in an open distance learning context: Health studies students' perspective

BackgroundOpen distance learning (ODL) institutions provide educational challenges with specific reference to the training of nurses. They have adopted online technologies to facilitate teaching and learning. However it is observed that most nurses do not use or minimally use tools such as a discussion forum for online interaction to facilitate teaching and learning. ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to determine how the discussion forum as an online interactive tool be used in an ODL institution to enhance student-to-student and student-to-lecturer online interactions. DesignQuantitative and descriptive in nature. MethodNo sampling was done. An online questionnaire was sent to all 410 second and third years Health Services Management students around the world registered with a specific ODL institution during the second semester. Eighty seven students responded to the questionnaire. Data analysis was done quantitatively and descriptively in the form of diagrams. ResultsThe findings indicated that 84.9% of students own computers, and 100% own cellular phones, but only 3.8% participated in online discussion forum. Some students indicated that they were technologically challenged. Some lecturers interact minimally online and are not supportive to them. The institution does not give them the support they need to acquire the necessary skills to utilise these technologies. ConclusionThe article suggests that lecturers, active interaction in an online discussion forum as a way of supporting students, are fundamental to effective teaching and learning. The university should consider providing intensive mentoring to students to enable them to utilise the available technologies optimally.

Using Community-Based Research to Improve BSW Students’ Learning in Community Practice: Bringing the Macro into Focus for Traditional and Distance Learners

ABSTRACTThis article describes community–university partnership building, course development/management, and evaluation outcomes related to an intensive community-based research project that was integrated in two sections of an undergraduate course on community practice. Pre- and posttest data were collected from 60 BSW students who were enrolled in community practice and who participated in a community-based research project with their state’s fair housing office. The evaluation outcomes focus on changes in professional interest in macro practice, students’ self-efficacy, and differences in students’ learning experiences, based on traditional bricks-and-mortar or distance learning contexts. Results show that students experience increases in self-efficacy related to community assessment and intervention. Qualitative results show that students experienced shifts in their professional goals related to macro practice, increased competence and understanding, and personal transformation. A number of differences emerged between traditional and distance learners. Results are discussed in the context of curriculum development and next steps for institutionalizing CBR in community practice courses.

Use of Animated Pedagogical Agent in Sport Management Education: Effect on Students’ Situational Interest

The purpose of this study was to investigate how an animated pedagogical agent (APA) affected an individual’s level of situational interest (SI) using a case study in online education. Although online learning has become popular, the lack of social cues for students in distance-learning contexts has been suggested as problematic. APA has been conceptualized to support social agency theory between students and learning contents. SI has been considered to activate student’s immediate affective response to engage in an authentic learning context. The study examined the effect of APA in a case study on triggered-SI and maintained-SI to determine the benefits of multimedia-based instruction in online learning. A three-factor model including triggered-SI, maintained-SI-feeling, and maintained-SI-value was tested. Results revealed that the use of APA in a case study more positively stimulated students’ SI specific to triggered-SI and maintained-SI-value. Therefore, the implementation of the APA in a distance education setting could benefit students’ learning and also help educators to more effectively deliver a variety of sport management content areas.

The Role of Lecturers and University Administrators in Promoting New E-Learning Initiatives

This article examines the role of lecturers in encouraging and supporting students likely to be predisposed to challenges related to incomprehension, incapacity and isolation embedded in the virtual learning environment. This article used a constructivist lens to gain through interviews an understanding into the intuition, thoughts, ideals, beliefs and inclination of lecturers about the nature and extent of their supportive role in the e-learning environment. The key findings revealed that the role of lecturers in promoting e-learning is varied. The discrepancy seems to be emanating from the lack of clear understanding of the meaning, the depth, the breadth and thrust of e-learning pedagogy at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The UNISA Strategy 2015-2030 introduced incremental changes in the form of Open Distance e-Learning (ODeL), which highlights the infusion of e-learning in the Open Distance Learning (ODL) context. Given its ODeL mandate, and the prescripts of the UNISA Strategy 2015-2030 and as part of the academic project the institution committed to introduce e-learning from 2015. Further, the institutional resolve to adopt a hybrid model that incorporates traditional and electronic teaching modes has caused uncertainty in the teaching space with some lecturers leaning towards e-learning whilst others lean towards traditional methods. The article recommends that UNISA needs to clarify its standpoint by adopting definitions, demarcations, strategies and tools that will enhance the understanding, adoption and usability of e-learning platforms and systems.

On-campus mine surveying practicals: their contribution in training mining engineering students in an open distance learning context

On-campus mine surveying practicals: their contribution in training mining engineering students in an open distance learning context

Editorial: Charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education

This editorial offers an overview of extended papers presented at the biennial DEANZ2016 conference held at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, from 17–20th April, 2016. In tandem with the conference theme, There and back: Charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education, this special issue highlights think pieces from the three keynote speakers and five papers that offer insights into developments and practices in open, flexible, and distance learning contexts. As such, the collection is a rich repository of ideas and research that contribute to our interrogation of how digital technologies influence teaching and learning and work in a range of New Zealand and international educational contexts.

The intersection of professional and academic discourses: Hybridity as a strategy in MTech Policing proposals

In most cases, postgraduate students have to shuttle between working and studying, and this impacts on research writing in English. Among other things, research on postgraduate students has tended to focus on supervision, completion rates, quality, English as an additional language and academic literacy. Most of these are surveys targeting multiple academic disciplines. Not many studies have been conducted on postgraduate MTech policing students accessing academic discourse in an Open Distance Learning (ODL) context. This study employs a linguistic analysis with ethnographic framing to describe and explore the writing practices of police postgraduate students. The data comes from a linguistic analysis of (two) students' writing informed by intertextuality, and appraisal analysis of written proposals. In the linguistic analysis of students' writing, findings point to hybridization when police attempt to access academic discourse. Findings suggest that the 'practices' from the workplace professional contexts intersect with various subject positions in the literature reviews of proposals. This hybridity can be harnessed as a strategy when supervising or teaching research writing by all stakeholders and is a key feature of academic literacy in the police discipline.

La incorporación de los portafolios electrónicos en el proceso enseñanza-aprendizaje y evaluación de la geografía en el alumnado de educación a distancia = The incorporation of electronic portfolios learning in geography and evaluation process in distance

This communication presents the meaning and characteristics of an electronic portfolio applied in a university context of distance learning in the course: «Introduction to Research in Social Spaces» for the Master of UNED called: «Methods and advanced techniques historical, artistic and geographical research «within the itinerary of Geography. The ALF platform UNED will be e-Learning tool that will allow train, manage and share documents, create and participate in thematic communities, as well as make online projects. Through the same will take place around the exchange of documentation, brainstorming, basic orientations and even tracking processes from start to finish.

Space and Academic Identity Construction in Higher Education: An Open and Distance Learning Perspective

Research suggests that higher education changes affect the work and identity of academics. The consequent challenges often mentioned include too little time, work overload and limited autonomy among academic staff. Space is rarely mentioned, especially in relation to the context of open distance learning. This article reports on the findings from a study that was conducted in an open distance learning institution to understand how the institutional space is experienced by academics as they construct their identity. Institutional policy was examined, semi-structured interviews were conducted with academics and observations were made. The findings suggest that imagined institutional space is sometimes different from the lived space due to academics’ differing preferences of space. It is recommended that the institution should find the common ground between academics’ spatial needs and the institution’s imagined space as provided for through institutional policy.

Unmonitored students self-created WhatsApp groups in distance learning environments: A collaborative learning tool or cheating technique

Recent advances of communication technology have brought a myriad of advantages to distance education. Students’ interactivity and connectedness are no longer a concern in distance education. Yet, with this comes the challenge of maintaining academic integrity. As online instructors, we noticed a tendency among our online students to opt out of using our courses’ formal discussion groups for their course communication, and instead, independently create a group in the social instant messaging app, WhatsApp, away from our direct observation. In this mixed method research, we first investigated what motivate our students (n= 64) to create the WhatsApp group and what types of interaction they engage in as a group. Then, we examined our online students’ perceptions of cheating in reference to their participations in the group. Our findings revealed that our online students perceived cheating differently and expressed their objection to the inclusion of the term ‘cheating’ in the distance-learning contexts, as they believed that distance learning is an open educational environment which permits collaboration and open discussion.

Electronic marking of physics assignments using a tablet PC

Producing and marking assignments electronically has advantages for both students and academic staff. However, marking and commenting on electronic assignments requires a simple and efficient method for annotating students’ scripts. We report here on a pilot project that provided associate lecturers (ALs) for a Level 2 Open University physics course with Tablet PCs and appropriate software that enabled them to input handwritten annotation, including equations and diagrams, to files containing students' solutions to assignments. Surveys of the views of ALs indicated that this method of electronic marking is effective and acceptable to students and to a large majority of ALs. It could be used to streamline assignment handling and marking procedures in campus universities as well as in distance learning contexts.

Using Corpora in Language Teaching, Learning and Use

Language corpora have been shown to be of substantial help in improving learner writing, both for advanced students majoring in the language as well as for students with lower levels of proficiency needing language for specific purposes. This paper outlines two very different ways an online corpus has been successfully used as a reference resource by our learners. The first is in a distance learning context: the teacher highlights issues in the student’s academic writing and suggests corpus uses rather than simply giving the correction, the objective being to raise awareness of and sensitivity to the language problems identified. The second derives from a classroom situation where the learner himself chooses the items to check in a professional simulation writing task; the teacher guides the process, again with the intention of fostering the learner’s autonomy.

Improving postgraduate supervision in an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) environment. A case study at the College of Education University of South Africa (Unisa)

In an open and distance learning (ODL) environment postgraduate students, in the main, study part time and are often far removed geographically from the university and their supervisors. There is very little face to face contact between the students and supervisors. Supervision takes place from a distance. Postgraduate students are not able to complete their qualifications in the minimum time required. The purpose of this paper is to examine how supervision of postgraduate students can be improved in an open and distance learning context so that students complete their qualification in the minimum time required. A qualitative approach was used to collect data from postgraduate ODL students. The results indicate that students are generally satisfied with the supervision that they receive, however, the following areas need to be considered in order to improve postgraduate supervision: proposal writing, research methodologies, data analysis, and the appropriate allocation of supervisors. The following recommendations are made: supervisors need to have more face to face contact with students, supervisors should be allocated to students on registration and regional workshops conducted by the university should specifically address the issues of proposal writing, research methodologies and data analysis.

CROSSING BOUNDARIES: LECTURERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE USE OF WHATSAPP TO SUPPORT TEACHING AND LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

While literature continues to promote mobile learning and, in particular, the use of mobile phones for teaching and learning in blended and open distance learning (ODL) to bridge the digital divide, many lecturers still struggle to understand and engage with it to support their teaching practices. Using the theoretical notion of ‘boundary crossing’, this study reflects on how three South African higher educators introduced WhatsApp, a mobile instant messaging application, into their teaching practices, within a blended mode of delivery, both for distance education but also campus-based learners. Following their experiences with using WhatsApp as a boundary object in their engagement with learners, we explore how a pedagogical model, rules of engagement, group ownership and learner profile impacted on their teaching and their students’ learning practices. In this article we argue that mobile technology such as WhatsApp can, by acting as a boundary object, assist in increasing immediacy and connection not only in informal, but also in formal blended and open distance learning contexts, facilitating reflection, coordination, identification and, in some cases, with students’ control and ownership, transformation. However, more research is needed to include experiences of students, to explore in more depth the ethical issues of using WhatsApp in particular contexts, and to assess the potential to transfer these findings into larger ODL contexts.Â