Research in Distance Education: A Status Report

Abstract

Since the 1950s and expansion of social science research, distance education has been studied in comparison to face-to-face or classroom instruction. Although researchers continue to conduct comparative studies, their usefulness in revealing more information has diminished over the years; invariably, they have returned a "no significant difference" result between various forms of instruction. In recent years, researchers have moved beyond atheoretical, experimental comparative studies and have introduced new methods, such as discourse analysis, and in-depth interview of learners. These new methods overcome many methodological and theoretical limitations of the physical science view of distance education. These studies have further revealed the complexity of distance education, indicating the many variables involved in the concept. Starting with the core issue of instructional interaction and grounded on the theory of transactional distance, a new strand of research using methods related to systems dynamics, hierarchy and complexity theories, promises a more comprehensive understanding.

Investigating uses and perceptions of an online collaborative workspace for the dissertation process

“…Study findings also demonstrated that doctoral candidates' who use SharePoint extensively have significantly higher student-to-student connectedness and studentto-faculty connectedness compared with doctoral candidates who use it moderately and on a limited basis. One plausible reason for this is that the increased interaction between advisors and candidates as well as among candidates via this technological medium lessened psychological distance and, thus, increased feelings of connectedness (Moore 1989;Saba 2000). Additional results revealed that sense of connectedness was positively associated with the usage of the Dissertation Portal (SharePoint) task list and discussion forum.…”

Maths: from distance to e-learning

“…In the sixties, studies illustrated that Instructional TV implied the same learning results between traditional and distance education and this trend has been reaffirmed in later times [46]. It's not out of the ordinary to see that the biggest university in the world with 2'7 millions of students is a Chinese distance university named the China Central Radio and TV University.…”

Methodological Trends of the Distance Education Theses Published in Turkey from 2005 to 2014: A Content Analysis

“…Dolayısıyla bu araştırmada yetişkinler üzerine yapılan araştırmaların fazla sayıda gerçekleştirilmesi, Knowles (1984)'in yetişkin eğitimine yönelik çalışmasının bir uzaktan eğitim kuramı olarak (Simonson vd., 2006) kabul gördüğünü destekler niteliktedir. Bunun yanında uzaktan eğitimin yaşam boyu öğrenme fırsatı sunması (Horzum, 2007) ve her kesimden bireylerin uzaktan eğitim ihtiyacı hissetmesi (Saba, 2000), ilerleyen yıllarda 12 yıllık zorunlu eğitim düzeyindeki öğrencilerinin de uzaktan eğitimin ilgi alanına gireceği ihtimalini artırmaktadır.…”