RESEARCH RELATED TO MEDIA IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

Much of the early research in distance education focused on comparisons between delivery media such as television, video, or computer and traditional face-to-face teaching. Other research compared the effectiveness of one distance delivery medium over another. Most of these media comparison studies found no significant differences (NSD) in learning (Boswell, Mocker, & Hamlin, 1968; Chu & Schramm, 1967; Chute, Bruning, & Hulick, 1984; Hoyt & Frye, 1972; Kruh, 1983; Whittington, 1987). Critiquing these early media comparison studies, Spenser (1991) points out that they tended to report comparative statistics which gave no indication of the size of differences, if any, between the types of instruction. Conclusions tended to be based on the presence or absence of a statistically significant result. "When groups of research were reviewed there was a tendency to use a 'box score' tally approach, frequently resulting in a small number of studies favoring the innovation, a similar number favoring the traditional approach, and the vast majority showing NSD" (p. 13).
Whatever methods have been used to report the results of media comparison studies and their instructional impact, these studies have yielded very little useful guidance for distance education practice. This prompted Clark (1984) to make the following observation: "Learning gains come from adequate instructional design theory and practice, not from the medium used to deliver instruction" (p. 3). Although Clark's statement has been debated (Kozma, 1994), educational technologists agree that the quality of the instructional design has a significant impact on learning. It is time, therefore, to move away from media comparison studies that often yield no significant differences, and begin to examine factors such as instructional design, learning and instructional theory, and theoretical frameworks in distance education, which when applied to learning, might account for significant differences in levels of performance. The questions that need to be asked are not which medium works best, but rather how best to incorporate media attributes into the design of effective instruction for learning. Studies which compare two different instructional designs using the same medium may yield more useful results for practice than simple media comparisons. Little research has been done to examine what happens in the learning process when students interact with various technologies.
Research in the area of distance education falls into areas of traditional and exploratory research. Traditional research occurs within the field and is reported in the distance education literature. Exploratory research is often interdisciplinary and found in related literature. It is frequently the result of interest in educational application of newer technologies in various related disciplines.
The traditional research literature in distance education is brief and inconclusive. Both quantitative and qualitative studies have generally lacked rigor. Driven by practice, much research has taken the form of program evaluation, descriptions of individual distance education programs, brief case studies, institutional surveys, and speculative reports. Although well reported case studies offer valuable insights for further investigation, the literature in distance education lacks rich qualitative information or programmatic experimental research which would lead to testing of research hypotheses. Also, because of the international nature of the field, research is reported in international journals, many of which are not peer reviewed. A number of research reports are generated by governmental agencies and institutions responsible for large scale distance delivery programs. These may be proprietary and are often not readily available.
Much traditional research in distance education has focused on issues of technology. More than 23 percent of the literature reviewed concerned issues related to technology and the role of the distance educator. As we said, most of those related to technology were media comparison studies which resulted in no significant difference. Issues concerning new technological advancements were most frequently a concern of North American writers.

Research Development

Scholars have approached the question of distance education research in a variety of ways. Coldeway (1990) notes that researchers in the field have not tested the various theories which have been advanced, and hypotheses have not been identified for experimental research. He calls for the development of a research base using, for example, Keller's Personalized System of Instruction to build a baseline of data for distance education research. Shale (1990) comments that research within the field is not productive because the field has limited itself to studies of past and present practice which look at "distance" as the significant concept. He calls for an examination of broader issues in education which look at communication technologies as part of education at a distance. He cautions that: 
	"In sum, distance education ought to be regarded as
	education at a distance. All of what constitutes the
	process of education when teacher and student are able
	to meet face-to-face also constitutes the process of
	education when teacher and student are physically
	separated." ( p. 334)
This view has not been popular within the distance education community. However, it has become apparent that more significant research dealing with variables that affect distance learners is being done outside of distance education than within it. Model studies, often exploratory, are appearing not within traditional distance education literature, but across disciplines where researchers are examining the interaction of learners with newly developing technologies. Nonetheless, there are a number of significant research studies both in traditional and exploratory areas of distance education.

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