VOLUME 9, NUMBER 2, 1995
Editorial
The 1995 Distance Education Research Symposium: A
Research Agenda
Michael G. Moore
Articles (for abstracts,
click here)
Constructivism and Computer-mediated Communication in Distance Education
David Jonassen, Mark Davidson, Mauri Collins, John Campbell, and Brenda
Bannan Haag
Transactional Issues in Distance Education: The Impact
of Design in Audioteleconferencing
Terry D. Anderson and D. Randy Garrison
Personality Characteristics Differentiating and Predicting
the Achievement of Televised-course Students and Traditional-Course Students
Paul M. Biner, Martin L. Bink, Michelle L. Huffman, and Raymond S. Dean
Grass Roots
Science Teacher Education at a Distance
Michael Jaeger
Interview
Speaking Personally with Lionel Baldwin
Shirley Davis
Book Reviews
Theoretical Principles of Distance Education
Edited by Desmond Keegan
Dan O Coldeway
Open Learning Courses for Adults: A Model of Student
Progress
by David Kember
Greg Kearsley
EDITORIAL
The 1995 Distance Education Research Symposium:
A Research Agenda
Michael G. Moore
In May 1995, The American Center for the Study of Distance Education hosted the Third Distance Education Research Symposium-Conference. As readers of this journal will know, similar meetings of leading researchers were held in 1988 and 1991. In previous years, the Symposium was sponsored by the Annenberg/CPB Project; this year, it was supported financially by AT&T. This support allowed us to invite about fifty leading North American researchers to meet for a few days at Penn State. For the first time, this year's Symposium was enriched by the presence of about fifty observer-participants who were practitioners, teachers, and administrators of distance education interested in interacting with members of the research community. With this audience in mind, the researchers were asked to think particularly about the effect of research on improving the quality of distance education practice.
As in previous years, researchers were organized into four groups, each led by a moderator and supported by a recorder. The intention was to focus the discussions on one of four research areas: course design, instruction, policy and administration, or learners and learning. In reality, there was a great deal of overlap in the subjects discussed by each group. This overlap was noted in the final report by moderator Becky Duning of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and reporter Karen Brooks of Penn State's Acoustics Program. These commentators characterized the general climate of the group discussions as having an unexpected level of synergy within the group on the personal side that brought the group together in a dynamic manner. Participants shared insights and mutual concerns that crossed institutional and national boundaries and became remarkably productive in distilling baseline research questions. While addressing the session's theme, it is of interest to note that the group evidenced an overlap in its deliberations with other sessions. As a result, the connectedness of the different sessions was established. In essence, the conference itself served to enhance the individual themes while emphasizing their cross-cutting concerns.
Research on Policy and Administration
Duning and Brooks were responsible for recording the main ideas of the
group discussing policy and administration issues. The following are the
main areas that their group identified as needing immediate attention
by researchers:
- The legitimacy of distance education in the professional lives of faculty and administrators and the attendant change processes necessary to provide distance education with "value added" for these professionals.
- Finance and financial models. Illustrative questions included "What is the efficiency of investment in distance education programs?" and "How is it measured?"
- Changing the faculty culture. What policies and organizational structures are best for encouraging faculty participation in distance education?
- Access, equity, and the social impact of programs, especially as the "information highway" increasingly encourages a market-driven concept of distance education. What is the socio-economic impact of such programs, and what consumer protection policies may be called for?
- Applying the results of research. What change models help determine how to successfully apply the information being revealed by research? What are the benefits, and what are the penalties, of applying this information?
- Work styles and lifestyles. How do these change with participation in distance education and how do faculty and administrators respond to these changes?
- Evaluation of administrative practices. In light of recent activity by politicians and questions raised by the public regarding the mission of higher education, what is the relevance of current residency requirements and their impact on the success of distance education programs?
Research on Instruction
Michael Beaudoin of the University of New England led the discussion about
instruction, which was summarized by Ellen Bunker of the American Center
for the Study of Distance Education. Over the course of the two-day Symposium,
this group addressed a wide variety of topics; however, as the discussion
progressed, group members found themselves returning repeatedly to the
concept of interaction and its role in the distance education environment.
Participants in this group discussed a number of topics: an instrument
to measure interaction in audioconferencing settings, information used
in training preservice teachers to work in a distance format that would
ensure interaction in telecommunicated settings, the role and value of
interaction and the lack of research to support our instinctive sense
that interaction is important and necessary, and the need to link research
on interaction in distance education to educational theories, both from
education in general and from distance education.
During the final session of the conference, Beaudoin summarized some of the research questions relating to interaction:
- Is frequency of interaction meaningful?
- Is understanding increased when interaction is present?
- Is there an influence on learner satisfaction?
- Is interaction more important for certain types of learners?
- Is there an optimum form/type of interaction in
particular settings?
- What is the effect on retention?
- Are there changing patterns/levels of interaction
over a course?
- What is the perception of interaction versus the
use of it?
- What is the interplay between public and private
interaction?
- What is the interplay between different types of
interaction occurring simultaneously?
- What do students like? want? need?
- How is cost effectiveness and learning effectiveness determined?
An additional topic discussed as part of the Instruction section related to the role and future of the library in the distant learning environment. The importance of remote access and the role of the new electronic resources in contributing to the quality of distance education were discussed. Future research needs include the comparison of attitudes and performance of off-campus and on-campus students regarding library use and skill, measurement of student learning outcomes in terms of information literacy and self-directedness, and determination of how best to include library and information skills into the distance education curriculum.
Research on Course Design
The discussions about course design were led by Ellen Wagner of the DLS
Group and reported by Naana Nti of Penn State's Department of Agricultural
and Extension Education. The group concentrated at first on Al Lauzon's
heuristic model, which shows the relationships between material/content,
technology, teachers, learners, institutional governance, social governance,
and technological environment. Using this framework, the group discussed
various design issues and then moved to a discussion of outcomes. Four
levels of outcome, suggesting different levels of evaluation of distance
learning programs, were discussed. At the reaction level, evaluation would
focus on affective reactions to the delivery of content, the media used,
and the overall quality of the intervention, as well as on the materials
used. Evaluation of learning would focus on pre-test, post-test, and observer
scores. Transfer evaluation would focus on the improvements in the performance
of learners at work and in other settings as a result of the educational
intervention. Impact evaluation would look at the effect of the intervention
on the organization and whether the organization's expectations were met,
with follow-up investigation planned if expectations were not met.
Questions and issues identified by the course design group included:
- The affective component in learning: recognizing
that design can be affective as well as cognitive
- The fit between technology and various designs
- Educational designs from the institution's point of view (instruction)
- Educational designs from the learner's point of
view (information overload)
- Designing for collaboration: teaching effective
collaboration skills
- Self-self interaction: using course design to create spaces for learners to reflect
- Factors influencing course design efficacy
- Dimensions of learner-centered designs
- Changes from linear to multivariate models of course design
Learners and Learning
The discussion of learners and learning was led by Chère Gibson
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and reported by Penn State's Mauri
Collins from the Instructional Systems Program. In response to the question
"What research is needed to enhance the quality of distance education?"
this group concluded that, while it was important to have a continuing
program of outcome studies and assessments, it was also necessary to consider
more carefully what is meant by "quality outcomes." Are we simply
looking for a satisfied learner? Are we looking at who can do well on
a course test? Are we starting to broaden our outlook and evaluate long-term,
post-course results? Are we looking at outcomes where students have gained
cognitive skills or may have acquired a broader level of learning strategies
that they did not have before? How do we assess the kind of process that
helps students engage in "meaning making?" Learner attributes
of special interest to the group were perceived self-efficacy, conation
(striving), learning styles and strategies, psychological type, and social
affiliative needs. The group wanted to see more research regarding site
facilitators and the part played by these people in bringing about learning
outcomes.
Agreeing that there is no point in undertaking more media-comparison studies or other meta-analysis, the learner group suggested that we need to focus on the features of particular media to see how they contribute to learner outcomes. For example, how does a particular medium such as audiographics contribute to interaction, and what particular types of interaction are best brought about by this medium? What are the particular types of interaction better achieved by computer conferencing than by other media? These questions led to a final area of concern: the extent to which research looks at learning in its total context. In distance education, we have looked at the whole terrain for some time; now it is time to focus on what possibilities exist in various settings, whether things are working for us, and, if not, how to fix the situation. It is hard to find one set of characteristics that apply to all different distance learning settings; to all types of media, production, and instruction; and to the different ways that facilitators use various teaching strategies. We must begin to look at the features of each setting or context and begin to articulate the distinguishing characteristics of these different settings. A further step is to ask how these contexts affect the learners and their learning, the learning experience, process, and outcomes.
The above summary of the four group discussions at the Third Distance Education Research Symposium-Conference is my own synthesis of notes provided by recorders at the discussions. Obviously, a great deal is lost as discussions pass through several layers of summarization. However, I hope this summary will have captured some of the ideas currently being explored by researchers in the field. Readers who wish to know more can send for copies of the four Monographs that are being produced by the American Center for the Study of Distance Education. Each Monograph, edited by the group's moderator, will contain papers prepared by the participants in each of the four discussion groups mentioned in this editorial. Also, we invite readers, as well as participants at the Symposium, to continue the discussion by sending comments or questions to DEOS-L, the Distance Education Online Symposium.
The 1995 Symposium was a great success. We hope to hold another before long; perhaps more readers will be able to join us as we continue to advance the agenda of distance education research.
Constructivism and Computer-Mediated
Communication in Distance Education
David Jonassen, Mark Davidson, Mauri Collins, John Campbell, and
Brenda Bannan Haag
The fields of learning theory and instructional design are
in the midst of a scientific revolution in which their objectivist philosophical
foundations are being replaced by a constructivist epistemology. This
article describes the assumptions of a constructivist epistemology, contrasts
them with objectivist assumptions, and then describes instructional systems
that can support constructive learning at a distance.
Transactional Issues in Distance Education: The
Impact of Design in Audioteleconferencing
Terry D. Anderson and D. Randy Garrison
This paper reports the results of a study of student perceptions of learning via audioconferencing in university-level courses delivered at a distance. Field observations, interviews, and a focus group were used to triangulate and deepen knowledge obtained from an initial mail survey. The results of the investigation revealed that the audioteleconferences were being used under two quite different instructional designs, which were associated with significant differences in students' perceptions of the opportunity to engage in critical thinking skills, creation of a community of inquiry, and value of various components of the distance education system. The study documents students' perceptions and outlines ways in which these sessions can be designed to induce maximum learning opportunities.
Personality Characteristics Differentiating and
Predicting the Achievement of Televised-Course Students and Traditional-Course
Students
Paul M. Biner, Martin L. Bink, Michelle L. Huffman, and Raymond S. Dean
A large-scale field study was conducted to 1) determine
if the personality traits of students enrolled in televised college-level
courses differ from the personality traits of students enrolled in traditional
college-level courses and 2) identify the specific personality traits
predictive of successful performance in televised classes. Results showed
that students enrolled in telecourses do have a unique personality profile
and that certain traits predicted success for these students. Implications
of these results are discussed.
Science Teacher Education at a Distance
Michael Jaeger
The nation's school reform agenda focuses on fundamental changes in schools and teachers; science education has been identified as a key area for these changes. However, science teachers in rural schools often are at a disadvantage for receiving necessary continuing education. Telecommunications technology can provide these teachers with access to current information in science education; it also allows teacher educators to model desirable science teaching strategies. This article reports on a pilot project that used interactive videoconferencing to provide hands-on instruction to science teachers at various rural sites and computer conferencing to link participants for coursework, networking, and access to resources.
