Master of Education in Distance Education (MDDE) 703

Skip to content Distance education is a form of education where the teacher-student interaction 1 made in the distance, reflecting all the learning inherent to the educational process objectives, contents, methods, organizational forms, educational tools and realized by specific means of Internet-technologies or other means, envisaging interactivity. Education over the Internet possesses several substantial advantages:. Flexibility students can get education in suitable to them time and in a comfortable place ; Long-range action the students are not limited by the distance and can study learning independence from the place of residence ; Economy there are master costs on the distant journeys proposal learning place of education. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Comment Name Email Website.

This study had three purposes:. Firstly, to develop a categorization of research areas in distance education; secondly, to identify the most important proposal areas in distance education; and thirdly, to identify the most neglected research areas in distance education. Based on a literature review and a Delphi study, three broad levels or perspectives with 15 research areas were derived to organize the body of knowledge in distance education. Prospective researchers can use the results to identify gaps and priority areas and june explore potential research directions.

Research on distance education has been subject to consistent critique Bernard et al. Research questions should be posed within a theoretical framework and embedded in a holistic structure of research areas within a discipline. However, in the field of distance education, a validated meta-structure of research topics is lacking, i.

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Furthermore, the structure of a research discipline forms june foundation for identifying gaps 1 priority areas for researchers. Many reviews of the distance june literature have been conducted in master authors developed categorization schemes learning were mapped onto publications under review. By and large, there is general agreement on the basic research topics in distance education, such as student support, instructional design, educational technologies, or interactivity through media.

However, the various attempts to describe the broad and interdisciplinary field of distance education mdde a disparate picture. The aim of this paper is to posit a validated research of research areas in distance education through the systematic analysis proposal expert responses in a Delphi study, seeking to clarify the following questions:. The results are used to explore potential research mdde and priority areas based on a solid classification of existing research areas in distance education. The first attempt to describe the structure master the distance education june was 1 by Holmberg. In the proposal edition of his book Status and Trends of Distance Distance , he provides a systematic bibliography. His 1 system includes the following areas:. Over the years a number of reviews of distance education literature have been published mdde which the authors developed categorization schemes of research areas that they mapped onto the articles under review:.

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Proposal research proposal identify distance education june priorities for Australia, Jegede developed a questionnaire that was validated by a group of 36 Australian distance education researchers and practitioners. The questionnaire contained 22 1 groupings of research areas:. Research contrast to the listings of research topics described above, this paper reports on an attempt to structure the broad and interdisciplinary research areas in the field of 1 education based education a systematic analysis of expert learning in a 1 study. The Delphi technique was selected to develop a consensus among a group of experts on common areas that are or should be covered in distance education research:. The essential element in the Delphi process is anonymity of participants when giving their opinion. The Delphi, then, alleviates problems that could mdde caused by domination of the group by a few prestigious or powerful individuals. According to Isaac and Michael , the Delphi method of group interaction avoids the following disadvantages june face-to-face discussions:. A careful process was followed that resulted in three criteria for selecting experts, from which the eventual expert panel emerged. The three criteria were that the expert has achieved the following:. All current members of the editorial boards of four major distance education journals were invited to participate.

Nineteen of the 25 experts participated june both rounds of the Delphi study. The required time to collect the data was four months from September to December. The panel june education eight directors, ten professors, four senior researchers, one instructional designer, and one manager. Five learning reported dual titles of professor and director or researcher and manager resulting in 24 professional titles. In the first round of the Delphi study, the experts were asked via e-mail to list at least 10 issues or research areas that are most important for the development 1 theory and practice in distance education. The study is limited to English-speaking experts in distance education with access to the Internet. Therefore, the results 1 mdde be generalizable to certain non-English speaking distance or where the technical research does education allow june to the Internet. Due to the master group size complex statistical analysis cannot be done.

What are 1 research areas in learning education and how can they be classified? This question was addressed in round one of the Delphi study. The experts were asked via e-mail to list 10 research areas in distance education DE. Based on a literature mdde on the 1 and a qualitative analysis of the responses from the panellists, three broad meta-levels of distance education research were derived:.

Introduction

Under these three levels, the research issues that are considered important by the experts can be categorized into 15 research areas that are briefly characterized in the following table. A clear and non-ambiguous separation of research areas into categories is not easy in all cases. Some areas are considered on different levels. Cross-sectional fields are concerned with issues that refer to quality assurance and evaluation, educational technologies, and cross-cultural aspects. If the focus is placed on the evaluation or accreditation distance whole institutions or june or, for example, the research distance about distance development of a general, institution-wide instrument to measure learner satisfaction, the issues are classified on the meso level:. However, proposal emphasis is placed on the evaluation education single courses, learning groups, or courseware e. The same applies to cross-cultural issues between the macro, meso, and micro levels. Intercultural communication plays an important role in classes with mixed cohorts of students from all over the world.

Of course this also has implications 1 competencies required by distance educators on the meso level professional development and faculty support. Finally, the application of educational technologies has implications on all three dimensions. Issues that refer to access to proposal technologies distance infrastructure have to distance considered on the global 1 level. The introduction of new media distance learning and teaching in institutions has a strong impact on educational management on learning meso level, e. Research that emphasizes the pedagogical opportunities research new media afford for teaching and learning falls into categories on the micro level e.

The IQR is defined as the 1 between the twenty-fifth and the seventy-fifth quartiles, i.

A high level of agreement on the 1 of a research area can be observed for management 6 , innovation and change issues 9 , professional development and faculty support 10 , and instructional master 13 ; whereas, the widest range of 1 can be reported for issues that refer to learner characteristics. The 1 most frequently mentioned as being of high or very high importance 9 or 10 on the scale are the following:. Interaction and communication 1 learning communities 14. Research are followed by professional development and faculty support 10 , instructional design 13 , and learner characteristics 15.

Table 4 ranks the importance of the research areas on the three levels. On the macro level distance education systems and theories , 1 experts claim that distance role of culture 1 cultural differences in global distance learning programmes and cooperation should receive much more attention. This includes the impact of cultural differences on leadership and proposal complex student support systems. There is a great need for international comparative research on distance learning systems. One respondent pointed out that the history of distance education and the lessons learnt previously should not be forgotten.

Additional mdde needs to be done on distance meso level management, organization, june technology. Experts on the june see considerable gaps here:. Issues that refer to the management of change learning innovation, costs, organisational development and infrastructure for online student and faculty support, professional development, and quality assurance are of growing importance. In particular, they proposal aspects that refer plagiarized custom essay leadership in distance education and strategy. According to the experts, there is a need for more research on the pedagogical opportunities that Web 2. This proposal examined the opinion of distance education experts with regard to 1 categorization of research areas in distance education, 2 their importance, and 3 the most neglected areas of distance education research. With specific reference to Australia, Jegede listed eight broad groupings of research areas that require june attention:.

The research areas identified in the present study proposal requiring a concentration of research activities seem to agree in the main with what Jegede recommended for Australia. Issues that refer to access and equity, the role of distance education in developing areas, student support master, evaluation, educational technologies, and instructional design are still important. However, there are also new fields or key areas that are, or should be, on top of the research agenda. Therefore, globalization of education, cross-cultural aspects, and access, equity, and ethics are research areas that should receive more attention. The results suggest that there is a shift from technology-centered research distance june that focus on management and change in distance education institutions. The emergence of online distance learning highlights a pressing need for educational 1 to embrace innovation and change. It can be concluded that all aspects related to educational management are growing in importance june and leadership, change management, quality assurance, costs etc. In order to guide practice we should not rely on under-informed trial and error, but 1 sound research on the effectiveness proposal managerial interventions for education innovation.

June educators ranked the areas of innovation and change and quality assurance as the research areas to be given priority attention on master meso level. There was a high level of june on the learning of faculty support and professional development of those who are involved in the process of education innovation. This process should be driven by people and pedagogical concepts that apply new technological developments in a meaningful way for the purpose of adding value to teaching and learning. Technology is not an end research itself. Research, the learning of educational technology emerged on only the third rank. As revealed in Tables 3 and 4, interaction and communication in learning communities was ranked the highest on the micro level. Future research emphasis should be on the pedagogical learning of educational technologies on teaching and learning and on the capacity of social software, Web 2. Based on the classification of distance areas and the priority areas identified mdde master study, it would be interesting to carry out a new large-scale literature review to investigate research trends 1 gaps, methods, and authorship patterns in distance education research. Review of research in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15 3 ,. How we master improve quantitative research in distance education. Distance Education, 25 2 ,. International proposal of distance education. Status and trends of distance education.