Characteristics of Distance Learning in Academia, Business, and Government

Assessing and Measuring Training Performance 2000 Workshop

“…From these summary reports and many like them, little can be gained from the business literature to deepen our understanding of how DL affects performance. The military, in contrast, has been more forthcoming with the details of evaluating distance learning, although the majority of reports (over 80% according to Walsh, Gibson, Miller, & Hsieh, (1996)) reported video teletraining as the DL technology rather than the new genre of Web-based learning tools entering the marketplace.…”

“…For example, Walsh et al, (1996) concluded that for evaluations of DL in training environments, objective learning measures were used in only 36% of the cases. Learner satisfaction with courses is a common use of a reaction measure (Level I).…”