Module 2 (original version):
Distance Education definitions, history, and my reaction to
Equivalence Theory of Distance Education
(click here
to see the new version of this page)
This page has the following 3 sections:
Defining Distance Education
Here is where I will present my personal definition of distance education. I compare and contrast it with the definitions presented in my text and on other sites as well. Will my definition stand the test of time? Why or why not?
History Comparison
In this article, I briefly outline the development of distance education in the USA in contrast with another country. I also propose explanations for any differences.
Reaction to Equivalency Theory
In yet another edition of Paul's Chronicle, I present my reaction/reflection to Simonson's emerging theory of distance education and equivalence of learning experiences.
Defining Distance Education
In the textbook for our class, p. 34, Desmond Keegan (1986) provides five main elements of distance education definitions. I'll go ahead an review them here briefly, prior to divulging my own criteria and definition (I'll quote them here exactly):
- The quasi-permanent separation of teacher and learner throughout the length of the learning process (this distinguishes it from conventional face-to-face education).
- The influence of an educational organization both in the planning and preparation of learning materials and in the provision of student support services (this distinguishes it from private study and teach-yourself programs).
- The user of technical media -- print, audio, video, or computer -- to unite teacher and learner and carry the content of the course.
- The provision of two-way communication so that the student may benefit from or even initiate dialogue (this distinguishes it from other uses of technology in education).
- The quasi-permanent absence of the learning group throughout the length of the learning process so that people are usually taught as individuals and not in groups, with the possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialization purposes.
My comments on the above:
Well, first of all, I think that there is a heck of alot of similarity between 1 and 5 above. Nuff said on that point. However, I also feel that there may not be a need to mention whether or not an educational organization is involved. Part of the problem with including that, is that suddenly you will need to define "educational organization". After all, how many small companies who consult and develop e-learning materials, wouldn't call themselves "educational organizations"?
Lastly, I think that statement number 5 is a little deceptive. There really is no need to include the first half of that statement about separation (absence) of the group. Moving toward the second half of 5 though, it is also not necessary in my opinion that students be taught as individuals. If that is how you define distance ed, then this is going to exclude alot of activity which most people will tell is definitely distance ed.
Moving on to the criticisms of Keegan's 5 criteria by Garrison and Shale (1987, and in our textbook p. 35), we find that they agreed Keegan was making too many restrictions on what qualifies as distance ed. Instead of 5, they only listed 3 criteria (I'll quote our text exactly again for these):
- Distance education implies that the majority of educational communication between (among) teacher and students(s) occurs non contiguously.
- Distance education must involve two-way communication between (among) teacher and student(s) for the purpose of facilitating and supporting the educational process.
- Distance education uses technology to mediate the necessary two-way communication.
My comments on the above:
It seems to me that they already got it wrong with their very first component. since I would think that there are plenty of distance education classes which occur contiguously the majority of the time (such as ITV). In sum, because of such cases, I would hesitate to exclude any of the 4 quadrants other than same time and same place (face to face).
Of course, we mustn't miss the idea of "open education" by Edwards (1995, and on pg. 35 of our text). Basically, it's just his way of separating the Fordist/Industrialization approach (as described by Peters and others) from the new constructivist 'empowering' values on open access and maximum individual attention and customization (essentially, the doctrine of customer service-ism). I'm not really sure what this has to do with the definition of distance ed, other than to provide a way to classify it.
Finally we get to the definition offered by (I presume, since I have no way of discerning which author was responsible for which sections) Simonson on page 7, which he seemed to just sneak into the text without a citation, and even took a tone of statement as fact when presenting it (I think it is itself a quote, but again, there is no citation, see the 2nd paragraph on the page):
"institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors."
Fortunately, it seems that the citation finally comes through on page 32 (Schlosser & Simonson, 2002), and even some clarification on page 33 (3rd paragraph, 2nd sentence on the page):
"Telecommunications is defined as "communicating at a distance." This definition includes communication with the postal system, as in correspondence study, and other non electronic methods for communication."
Well, this is one very liberal interpretation of telecommunications. I wish he had a citation for that definition, as I've never heard anyone state that this include postal mail.
Lastly, I will not give my own definition and then clarify my criteria for it:
Distance education is education which occurs when there is temporal or geographic distance between the students and the originators of the learning materials or facilitators for a majority of the time.
Notice that I have included only three criteria:
- It is education. This means that there is no need for a bureaucracy or formal organization. Education just means intentional learning as far as I'm concerned.
- It involves distance. This is pretty obvious. It is legalistic and stupid to try and clarify this further.
- The first two criteria represent the state of affairs a majority of the time. Again, this is obvious.
My definition will stand the test of time, because it is clear enough to avoid inclusion of all kinds of 'social activities' which are not educational, and still broad enough to continue to include the same construct as technologies change over the future.
Now, the future changes ahead, represents an important part of the terminology I used. Notice i make no reference to an instructor. I believe that the definition should be able to encompass future situations which may involve exclusive facilitation by artificial intelligence with an affective 'touch'.
Lastly, I have conspicuously avoided discussion of "theories" (as labeled in our textbook) in my definition since I believe that a definition does not equate to a theory and attempts to create a theory from once single definition are a little misguided.
(back to top)
History Comparison
First
of all, I would like to point out some differences and
similarities between our textbook, and some other sources
I have explored which provide histories of distance education.
On page 36 of our textbook, under the section entitled
'Correspondence Study', Simonson indicates that the roots
go back at least 160 years, and begins his history with
"an advertisement in a Swedish newspaper in 1833" for "the
opportunity to study "Composition through the medium of
the Post."" He then moves on to England and Isaac Pitman's
1840 penny post advertisement for shorthand instruction
via correspondence.
Although there are authors
who place 'the beginning' with Isaac Pitman right around
1840 plus or minus a decade (Diane Matthews, 1999, for instance,
as well as this website),
I found at least one source (Bower & Hardy,
2004) which provides a quotation from an actual advertisement,
which clearly seems to fit our criteria:
March
20, 1728, the Boston Gazette contains an advertisement
from Caleb Phillipps, "Teacher of the New Method of Short
Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous
to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons
sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those
that live in Boston."
According to one book I found (Holmberg, 1995):
References to what was probably correspondence
education occur as early as the 1720s and to what was indisputably
correspondence education in the 1830s (Battenberg 1971:44;
Bratt 1977:161; Holmberg 1986:6-7). Correspondence education
is taken to denote teaching in writing, by means of socalled
self-instructional texts, combined with communication in
writing, i.e. correspondence between students and tutors.
As, for both of these elements, media other
than the written word became common and grew in importance,
the term correspondence education was felt by many to be
too narrow. In North America, independent study (cf. Wedemeyer
1981) and home study (Lambert 1983) have been used as competing
terms.
I included this second part of the quotation
from Holmberg because I think it is important to keep in
mind that terminology changes over the years, and thus we
may not be looking for the right key words and phrases when
searching for the origins. Although trained historical record
researchers are likely to be aware of this, when an educational
researcher goes looking for this information in records more
than a 100 years old, it can easily become a crucial issue
to keep in mind. It can even affect our results when doing
simple Google searches, as the internet itself may contain
information which will not be retrieved when searching for
the usual keywords.
Now I have attained a nice segway then, to
my next point, which will lead us out to the wider context
of the international scene. It may be that there are overall
differences between the way that distance education has developed
and spread in America, compared to other countries.
In Ch 1: Distance Education Theory, Methodology, and Epistemology:
A Pragmatic Paradigm by Farhad Saba of San Diego State University
(fsaba@mail.sdsu.edu) in the 'INTRODUCTION' (Moore, 2003)
writes:
America's approach to distance education has been pragmatic
and atheoretical. With the notable exception of contributions
made by Charles A. Wedemeyer, theories of distance education
have been primarily conceptualized and developed by Europeans,
Australians, and Canadians. The practice of distance education
in the United States traces back to the late 1800s, but the
first scholarly journal on the subject did not appear until
1987. Publication of the American Journal of Distance Education
and symposia of the American Center for the Study of Distance
Education organized by its director, Dr. Michael G. Moore,
have brought the question of theory to the forefront of discourse
in the United States and have highlighted the contribution
of American scholars to research and practice within the
discipline.
What then is Moore's overall summary of the
evolution of distance education in the US? If our class notes
(provided at http://www.educ.ttu.edu/online/maushak/edit5370/history.htm)
are correct, then he posits 3 generations which roughly correspond
to the same three sections discussed in our textbook as:
- Correspondence Study
- Distance Teaching Universities &
- Electronics Communication
I did some searching myself, and online freely available
references which clearly describe Moore's current explanation
of these generations eluded me. However, I was able to get
a rather lengthy and accurate preview online of the 2nd edition
of the handbook by Moore here.
(Moore, 2007). In a stunning display
of clarity, sound reasoning, and air-tight argumentation,
Michael G. Moore here describes what a theory of distance
education is. In the process, he adds the remark that "the
theory describes the circumstances which caused the creation
of distance education and its transformations in its three
or four generations." (p.62)
This taxonomic system (based on the media vehicle) would
of course fly in the face of Clarksonians. After much searching
though, I was able to find a totally different generational
description by Moore here which
seems to be based more on methodology:
The last generation of distance educators said
that learners can be distributed anywhere and we can deliver
education to them wherever they are. The next generation
says learners can be distributed anywhere and so can teachers
be distributed anywhere. And my children, I think, will be
taking some part of their course from the Open University
of Catalonia, and some part of their course from the Open
University of Honk Kong, and some part of their course from
the University of South Africa, and some part of their course
from Penn State.
In fact, the above classification system (or
any other one based on methodological differences which truly
reflect a paradigm shift in instruction design) is preferable
to me over one based on changes in technology, from the standpoint
of the need for theory which will prescribe best practices.
Finally, this leads me to my final point, and
one which both highlights the differences in distance education
evolution between the US and 'Third World' countries, and
which explains them. The primary drivers which govern the;
- methodology
used to implement distance education
- governmental support of national programs to support
distance education
- cultural and individual attitudes toward the value of
distance education
- and therefore the overall success of distance education
... is different between rich countries, and those countries
identified as 'Third World'. In the US, these drivers are
(for some adults) about personal growth and enhancement,
whereas in many other countries these drivers are related
most often to income earning potential, or social status.
Although these differences may seem small and certainly
have many exceptions, they can hardly be overstated, if
you have spent any considerable time overseas among extremely
poor people, and have witnessed their drive and desire
for the opportunity to escape the poverty and health risks
of a bare survival lifestyle. Note here that I am not providing
any references. It is (I think) my duty to admit here that
I am speaking of my own opinions, and that they are based
not on research, but on personal experiences.
Now that I have dropped that bomb, let me just provide a
few nuggets which may provide some indirect symptoms of this.
First, take a look at the below chart:
Source of Chart: Commonwealth of Learning / UNESCO Publishing
(2005) "PERSPECTIVES
ON DISTANCE EDUCATION Lifelong Learning & Distance Higher
Education" Christopher McIntosh, Editor & Zeynep
Varoglu, Editorial Coordinator. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001412/141218e.pdf (pg.87)
NOTE: The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental
organization created by
Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development
and sharing of open
learning and distance education knowledge, resources and
technologies.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) was
founded on 16 November 1945. UNESCO is a specialized United
Nations agency
promoting international cooperation among its Member States
and Associate Members
in the fields of education, science, culture and communication.
Notice in table 7.1 above, that the countries
which are at the top of the list. What do you think the average
standard of living is for the citizens of these countries.
The average students of these courses (not accounting for
outliers) are not "stay at home moms" in the sense that Americans
think of. These are very hard working people, who mostly
are manual laborers.
Similar results can be found by examining other
charts, such as the one's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_university and
on the web sites and documents referenced by it.
One last web site I will refer you to is here:
http://www.webometrics.info/ which
also has some extremely useful University ranking information
by nation, etc., globally and within the US:
Objectives of the Webometrics Ranking
(WR) 
|
The ranking is based on a combined
indicator that takes into account both the volume of
the Web contents and the visibility and impact of this
web publications according to the number of external
in links (situations) they received. The ranking is
updated every January and July, providing Web indicators
for universities and research centers worldwide.
The methodological
section adheres the Berlin
Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions.
The WR is produced by the Cybermetrics
Lab (CINDOC),
a unit of the National Research Council (CSIC),
the main public research body in Spain. The Lab acts
as an Observatory of the Science and Technology on
the Web. |
REFERENCES
Bower, B., & Hardy, K, (2004) Retrieved
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments and
cited as originating from: "From correspondence to cyberspace:
Changes and challenges in distance education" by Beverly
L. Bower and Kimberly P. Hardy, New Directions for Community
Colleges, Volume 2004, Issue 128 , Pages 5 - 12 --Also
Published by DW Bethany, "Societal Issues in Distance Learning",
September 2001, University of South Florida, and again in "Technological
Rug down the Hallways of Distance Education", November 2001,
Empire State College--Prior reference by RW Gattenberg (1971)
and Ken Freed (1988)
Holmberg, Börje (1995) Theory and Practice
of Distance Education. Routledge. New York. Page Number:
3.
Matthews, Diane (1999) The Origins of Distance
Education and Its Use in the United States. T H E Journal
(Technological Horizons In Education), Vol. 27, 1999.
Moore, M.G. (2001) Distance Education in the
United States: the State of the Art. Series of lectures on
the educational use of ICT and virtual education (6th june
2001) retrieved online from http://www.uoc.edu/web/eng/art/uoc/moore/moore.html
Moore, M.G. (2003) Handbook of Distance Education.
editor, William G.
Anderson - editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ. Publication Year: 2003.
Page Number: 3.
Moore, M.G. (2007) Handbook of Distance Education.
2nd Ed. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates. Mahwah, NJ. Preview online here.
(back to top)
Reaction to Equivalency Theory
Simonson's emerging theory of distance education and equivalence of learning experiences took a rather large amount of space in the chapter discussion of 'theories' of distance education. Because this theory was previously unheard of by myself, I thought that it must have made a very large and recent impact to take such prominence in the book, and to be part of this assignment. I therefore proceeded to investigate the theory further (beyond our text).
One of the very first things I did, was to notice that the ring/tone of the theory was very familiar. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had seen this before, in the preface to our book. So I looked back to that single page (somewhat short, but of course, the text itself is short and thus this is logical). There I found the curious statement that "In this text we take the following philosophical positions:" followed by 6 bulleted statements, all of which were highly related or even exact copies of the statements made in the theory by Simonson.
I remembered thinking to myself when I read the preface carefully (as is my custom for all textbooks, that is, to read them from cover to cover, or at least begin with that intention), "the vast majority of these claims can easily be supported or refuted by simple instruments or experimental procedures, so why are they be 'assumed' to be true, and why are they being labeled as 'philosophical positions'??"
After all, it would be very weird indeed if I told other people that I was going to just assume the total mass of the planet earth was some specific number, and that I took it to be a matter of one's philosophical position. Sure, you could probably argue in the face of common sense, that such a claim is no different than assumptions and beliefs about "spiritual matters", in the sense that even within science we can at times make very small decisions which are politically or personally guided as if with an agenda. However, I prefer common sense.
"At least" I told myself "the
basic tenets and propositions have immediate face validity
and are quite reasonable, and thus the theory itself holds
no immediately objectionable positions that I might find
contrary to my own knowledge within the field." At this
point, i strongly suspected.... and looked at the cover of
the book...and sure enough, Simonson was the first author
of this text.
Well, here we are gulping this material down as if it is the holy grail of true objective purveyance of the field overall, without partisanship or undue influence toward any one paradigm, and then suddenly I find myself suspicious (with good cause I think) that the author of the book is not merely presenting information, but is engaging in social and political activism, perhaps even with ultimate influence of personal gain and self-promotion (to the exclusion of the objective presentation of a complete picture of the field of study). I was repulsed and felt betrayed and taken advantage of.
This also helped to suddenly unravel the mystery
of why (to my consternation) the famous debate between Clark
and Kozma was presented as settled, past-tense, and a total
victory by Clark. I was a little suspicious of that, given
the way this debate has been presented to me in the last
few years by many other sources, both online and in print,
by many other respectable authors. All the same, here are
a few more 'balanced' presentations of this debate (high
google page rank), which by the way, is still an ongoing
debate today, and not even close to being completely 'settled'
as far as I can tell:
An entire website devoted to the
history and evolution of this debate (Bastian, 2000):
http://www.coe.tamu.edu/~mbastian/Clark-Kozma/CK-Ab-Intro.htm
Media and Learning: A Review of the
Debate (Materi, 2001)
http://www.ingenia-consulting.com/_articles/Media-and-Learning-Debate.htm
The only good analogy I can
make to my dissapointment over this method of presenting
information in a textbook is perhaps in the way that 'good
ol' boy government is sometimes stereotyped in the South.
The analogy is that I pay my taxes to the government in
good faith that they will provide equal opportunity for competition
among vendors and that those with the power to, will NOT
collude or abuse their stewardship of MY MONEY and that they
will seek to serve the public by choosing a bid among anonymous
others (in terms of favoritism) without kickbacks, and then
present back to me (the public being served) the best value
possible.
Back to my anecdote then: I then took a little
closer look at the next few pages of the textbook to see
if there was a blurb "about
the author(s)" or
something like that. The only other interesting detail I
found was that Nancy Maushak was the second name in the list
of acknowledgements. But nothing else turned up and I was
curious, so I went to the author's web site (initially, mainly
to try and find the additional resources mentioned in the
textbook) at:
Michael Simonson's Web site (our textbook author)
At the author's web site, i began to find some rather interesting other facts, including his eminence within our field as a leader, and prolific authorship. In particular, it seems he has authored some materials in collaboration with Dr. Maushak. Subsequently I went to look in fact at Dr. Maushak's web site and sure enough found the actual primary sources for this work available for download (actually, I had downloaded these some months earlier, when I was doing casual reading of various faculty member's works from among my own doctoral program):
Simonson, M. R. & Maushak, N. J. (1996). Instructional technology and attitude change. In David Jonassen (Ed.) Handbook of Research for Educational Communication and Technology (pp. 984 - 1016). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
Simonson, M. R. & Maushak, N. J. (1995). Situated learning, instructional technology, and attitude change. In Hilary McLellan (Ed.) Situated Learning (pp. 225-242). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
Let me move on then, toward a deconstruction of the semantic content of the theory, rather than 'merely the vehicle' of delivery (pun intended).
I believe the central foci of the theory are well contained in two of the "philosophical positions" taken to be assumptions throughout the book, as I will quote them from the preface in our text on page iii:
- "Equivalent classroom learning experiences are critical to the success of distance education. Providing equal learning experiences for learners regardless of their location is impossible. Rather, designers of instruction for distant learners should provide equivalent alternatives that provide various ways of learning.
- Distance education has changed -- even restructured -- education by making the experience of the distance learner as complete, satisfying, and acceptable as that of the local learner. Successful distance education system should be based on the belief that the more equivalent the learning experience of the distant student is to that of the local student, the more equivalent will be the outcomes of the learning experience."
I can recall from my days long ago, when I studied psychology in undergraduate courses, how often it seemed that theories were based on basic common sense, but that somehow they very gradually built up a base upon which real predictions, and indeed statistically significant outcomes could be produced through the manipulation and control of the variables and constructs involved. Of course, the refinement of the instrument used in those types of studies, is often subjected to a much more rigorous approval process it seems, than many of the instruments which gain favor within educational research, to the best of my knowledge of both.
The point I am making here is that the claims are not grand, and yet they are important in that many other concepts were by de selection not emphasized because of exclusivity in the formulation of this "theory". In other words, this theory has avoided the all-too-often pitfall of attempting a grand unified approach, and instead has more appropriately remained within the confines of a good beginning toward bridging the gap of the present state of the art, and our potentially near-future increased understanding of the science involved.
On the other hand, I would prefer that we go beyond merely attempting to bring the quality of distance education "up to par" with face to face education (which is what this is really about, I think). Nova Southeastern is a major planer among distance education institutions in the US, and they want to market their education as 'on a par' with top face to face education institutions (perhaps even Ivy League tier 1 or tier 2 research institutions). My opinion is that distance education can and will eventually surpass face to face education in the overall quality of the education and learning which occurs, for several reason, not the least of which is that higher percentages of each successive generation of students than ever before, are now taking it for granted that learning to use computer technologies and/or to be comfortable around technology in general is as much a necessity as learning to drive a vehicle.
(click here to see the
new version of this page)
(back to top) |
