Distance Education Research Research Articles

Review of distance education research (2000 to 2008): Analysis of research areas, methods, and authorship patterns

This paper presents a review of distance education literature to describe the status thereof and to identify gaps and priority areas in distance education research based on a validated classification of research areas. The articles (<em>N</em> = 695) published in five prominent distance education journals between 2000 and 2008 were reviewed for this study. The conclusion is that distance education research is strongly dominated by issues related to instructional design and individual learning processes; whereas, other important areas (e.g., innovation and change management or intercultural aspects of distance learning) are dreadfully neglected. There is a significant trend towards collaborative research and more qualitative studies. Over 80% of all articles originate from only five countries.

IRRODL year in review

Editorial

Toward deep learning for adult students in online courses

Adult students have become the new majority in online distance education. Research in online distance education, however, is still predominantly based on the historical perspective of the traditional student profile. This study examines adult students' learning engagement in online courses and explores the impact of online course design models and the type of online discussion on adult students' self-perceived and observable learning performance. The study findings inform that age itself does not predict adult students' learning satisfaction and performance. Instead, an integrated course model promotes learning satisfaction, while a Content + Support course model reinforces knowledge–constructive online interactions. The study findings also indicate disadvantages of close-ended discussion tasks in supporting students' online learning success.

The Ratings Game

This issue is notable as it is the largest single issue ever published by IRRODL! The issue contains fourteen peer-reviewed research articles, two technical reports, and links to five recordings and PowerPoint slides from research presentations to IRRODL‟s sister organization, the Canadian Institute for Distance Education Research (CIDER). It also contains two articles formatted for mobile devices (EPUB), and we welcome feedback, particularly from Amazon Kindle and Stanza users.

Moving distance education research forward

It was with considerable interest that I read Ian Mitchell's article discussing the founding of the journal Distance Education. My immediate response was that much has changed with the field of dis...

Sociocultural Factors Affecting the Success of an Online MBA Course

The complexities of the digital age pose challenges to existing instruction technology theory as it applies to a distance learning environment. Research in distance education especially lacks rich qualitative information or holistic analysis that would lead to improve the effectiveness of distance learning environment (Mclsaac & Gu-nawardena, 1996). Through the lens of activity theory, this study took a broad view of an online course and examines the socio-cultural mediators affecting the success of a distance course as well as the systematic tensions that characterize the culture of an online course. Recommendations were provided at the group and organizational levels to balance local tensions that emerged in the implementation of a distance course.

Distance Learning: The U.S. Version

Distance learning in higher education has developed differently in the United States from the way it developed many other countries. Driven by the developments in technology and fueled by partnerships with industry, distance education in the U.S. is charting unmapped waters. For over a century, universities have relied on students coming to them. Now they find that they must go to the students. This article examines some of the history, technology, research, and trends in distance education and raises key questions. What part does the profit motive play in the corporatization of education? How can traditional universities adjust to meet the needs of a changing population, and who will be the gatekeepers? The opportunity is here to improve on existing educational institutions and add flexibility to the monolithic institutions of traditional universities. Distance educators will need to be vigilant to ensure that the strengths of sound pedagogy are not lost in the race to embrace new technologies.

Problems and Little Victories in Transcript Analysis

This is a sound recording of a presentation delivered at a CIDER (Centre for International Distance Education Research) session in November 2007. The recording may be accessed at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/533/1007.

The World-Wide Inaccessible Web, Part 2: Internet routes

In the previous report in this series, Web browser loading times were measured in 12 Asian countries, and were found to be up to four times slower than commonly prescribed as acceptable. Failure of webpages to load at all was frequent. The current follow-up study compares these loading times with the complexity of the Internet routes linking the Web users and the Web servers hosting them. The study was conducted in the same 12 Asian countries, with the assistance of members of the International Development Research Centre’s PANdora distance education research network. The data were generated by network members in Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Additional data for the follow-up study were collected in China. Using a ‘traceroute’ routine, the study indicates that webpage loading time is linked to the complexity of the Internet routes between Web users and the host server. It is indicated that distance educators can apply such information in the design of improved online delivery and mirror sites, notably in areas of the developing world which currently lack an effective infrastructure for online education.

What's the Difference, Still? A Follow up Methodological Review of the Distance Education Research

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.

Looking for Critical Thinking in Online Threaded Discussions

Threaded discussion forums have been a popular topic for the past few years in distance education research and studied as a factor in student participation, satisfaction, learning outcomes, social presence, and interaction. Only recently has it been considered as a potential vehicle for the development of critical thinking skills and deep learning. Thirty-seven current studies on critical inquiry, deep learning. presence, and interaction in distance education were synthesized. The studies were compared for findings about participation quality, participation quantity, critical thinking skills and deep learning, and recommendations. The synthesis revealed that current literature touts the potential for development of deep learning and critical thinking skills through online threaded discussions. For the most part, however, research does not show this happening at a high level or to any great extent. Confounding the issue is the fact that current research is predominated by examination of education and graduate level online classes and is mainly focused on student perceptions and outcomes. This is at odds with the profile of today's “typical” distance education student. The need for more instructor involvement and effort is indicated in much of the research, but bulk of the research has focused on students and not teachers.

New verse or the same old chorus?: looking holistically at distance education research

While there continues to be a proliferation in the number of studies conducted on various aspects of distance education, we are often left with little understanding of the holistic planning and effects of it. This paper draws lessons learned from the literature on distance education over the past five years. This review did not seek to be exhaustive in presenting the findings of every study, but instead focuses on specific instruction we can take from past research at the institutional, faculty, and student levels.

Academics Telecommuting in Open and Distance Education Universities: Issues, challenges and opportunities

Research in distance and online education has focused on how to improve students: learning and support services. Faculty satisfaction, as one of the five pillars in Sloan-Consortium's quality framework for online education, has received less attention in research. Besides online teaching, little research has examined the experiences of academics working in institutions where the faculty is dispersed geographically. Outside the academy, teleworking or telecommuting has become quite popular in recent years. Most research to-date has been conducted in information technology-related corporations and government departments, but hardly any in post-secondary educational institutions. Drawing on a literature review of research in telecommuting or teleworking, this paper discusses the potential benefits and drawbacks of telecommuting for academics and their families, and the potential opportunities for -- and challenges faced -- by their distance and online education institutions.

Research on Distance Education: In defense of field experiments

This article extends the issues and arguments raised in Bernard, Abrami, Lou, and Borokhovski (Distance Education, 25(2), 175–198, 2004) regarding the design of quantitative, particularly experimental research in distance education. A single experimental, study from the distance education literature is examined from six different perspectives to show the differences between preexperiments, true experiments, and quasi‐experiments in terms of their impact on interpretability and generalizability (i.e., internal and external validity). Arguments for and against experimentation are discussed and the article ends with a description of meta‐analysis, the quantitative synthesis of experimental research, and its potential for providing answers to questions that no single study can adequately address.

STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVE OF PRACTICAL WORK IN LEARNING SCIENCES VIA DISTANCE EDUCATION

This article focuses on students' perspectives on various aspects of learning science at a distance, such as ‘expectations,’ ‘learning outcomes,’ and ‘satisfaction’. Two foundation science courses offered by the School of Science and Technology at the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) were selected for the study. A series of indepth interviews was carried out with students enrolled in these courses, followed by questionnaire surveys and field observations in order to validate and triangulate the interview data. The findings revealed that students placed a high value on practical work in science courses. Moreover, the more familiar with the course subject, the less difficulty they anticipate in learning science via distance education. Two significant correlations were also found, between the perception of practical work and satisfaction, and between the attendance rate and the perception of practical work with distance learning at OUHK. This research adds to knowledge of disciplinebased distance education research in terms of empirical data in both qualitative and quantitative forms. Further investigation on this issue may help instructional designers and developed of science courses in the decision on various aspects of course design and development.

The Past, Present, and Future of Research in Distance Education

The articles published in four prominent distance education journals between 1997 and 2002 were categorized and the references cited were tallied. The study provides an opportunity to examine research topics, methods, and citation trends. The results can be used to review current research trends and to explore potential research directions.

An Analysis of the Virtual Classroom: Does Size Matter? Do Residencies Make a Difference? Should You Hire That Instructional Designer?

Using 2003-2004 data from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies distance education program, we use regression analysis to examine the impact of enrollment, faculty teaching experience, online faculty pedagogical training, and help from an instructional designer on student course evaluations. This paper shows that higher enrollments result in lower teaching evaluations in traditional classroom-based courses, while online courses maximize overall student satisfaction at a class size of 23-25 students. Introduction There is a significant body of evidence that online education is at least as good as classroom-based instruction. Russel (1999) provides sufficient evidence that there is significant difference between the of face to face and online education. Subsequent studies have reinforced the no significant difference phenomenon.1 Distance education research has advanced to determining how online courses can be taught, structured, and supported to ensure education. Authors of The Sloan Consortium studies (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) provide many examples of best practices in online education, examining faculty satisfaction, learner satisfaction, cost-effectiveness, and other measures of quality.2 The recently formed Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) Consortium uses the combined experiences of the consortium members to provide quality principles in online education in library and information science.3 However, despite the volumes of best practices case studies and statements on what defines online education, there is still limited empirical research on several key factors in online education. Does class size matter? Do course residencies matter? Does an instructional designer make a difference? In examining any one of these issues, it is clear that the issues for online classes are different than for campus classes. If class size does not matter, a single online classroom can accommodate an unlimited number of students. The virtual classroom is not constrained by a physical number of chairs or size of a room. But while the constraint is not the size of the classroom, it may be more difficult for an instructor to give attention to larger classes online. The larger online class may also impact the interaction among the students, and ultimately the of the experience. There are a number of studies that examine the impact of class size on student achievement for traditional face to face classes in K-1 2 education; Preece (1987); Slavin (1989); Hanushek (1999); Nye, Hedges, and Konstantopoulos (2002). Preece presents a theoretical basis of how large class size can negatively impact student performance, but the empirical evidence of this negative relationship is mixed.4 The only study on the impact of class size on student achievement for a class offered in distance education format at the university level is Sugrue, Reitz, and Hansen (1 999).5 Sugrue, et al, examine the impact of enrollment on student performance in a managerial finance course offered face-to-face and with two-way video. The researchers used regression analysis on student exam scores to show that an increase in enrollment from 28 to 64 students in the distance education class lowered student performance even when accounting for student ability and initial perception of the class. To examine the impact of class size on the online classroom, this study uses student evaluation data from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies campus and online courses from 2003 and 2004. We used three different methods - scatter charts, regression analysis, and fixed-effects regression analysis - to examine the impact of enrollments on campus and online course evaluations. We test for the impact of enrollment on student evaluations while controlling for faculty teaching experience, online faculty pedagogical training, help from an instructional designer, and whether the course was taught during the summer. …

"한국 원격교육 연구의 동향과 전망: 1985～2005년도를 중심으로"

"한국 원격교육 연구의 동향과 전망: 1985～2005년도를 중심으로"

Navigating Distance and Traditional Higher Education: Online faculty experiences

<P>The academic culture of higher educational institutions is characterized by specific pedagogical philosophies, assumptions about rewards and incentives, and values about how teaching is delivered. In many academic settings, however, the field of distance education has been viewed as holding marginal status. Consequently, the goal of this qualitative study was to explore faculty members’ experiences in a distance education, online university while simultaneously navigating within a traditional environment of higher education. A total of 28 faculty members participated in a threaded, asynchronous discussion board that resembled a focus group. Participants discussed perceptions about online teaching, working in an institution without a traditional tenure system, and the role of research in distance education. Findings indicated that online teaching is still regarded as less credible; however, participants also noted how this perception is gradually changing. Several benchmarks of legitimacy were identified for online universities to adopt in order to be viewed as credible. The issue of tenure still remains highly debated, although some faculty felt that tenure will be less crucial in the future. Finally, recommendations regarding attitudinal shifts within academic circles are described with particular attention to professional practice, program development, and policy decision-making in academia.</P> <P><B>Key words:</B> distance education, online education, online faculty experiences, academia, tenure</P>

Reflections on Research, Faculty and Leadership in Distance Education

Reflections on Research, Faculty and Leadership in Distance Education