This chapter emphasized that we no longer need to ask whether distance education courses are as effective as classroom courses. The authors make this argument based on the studies of the effectiveness of teaching in terms of learner achievement. Most often these studies compare the results of teaching and learning in conventional classroom environment with teaching and learning in a distant environment. This line of research might go back more than 50 years. Typical example of these kind of studies are listed from page 62 to page 65 in Moore and Kearsley's Distance Education - A systems View (1996).

The usual finding in the comparison studies, as Moore and Kearsley (1996) pointed out, is that " there are no significant differences between learning in the two different environments, regardless of the nature of the content, the educational level of the students, or the media involved." "It seems more reasonable to conclude that (1) there is insufficient evidence to support the idea that classroom instruction is the optimum delivery method; (2) instruction at a distance can be as effective in bringing about learning as classroom instruction; (3) the absence of face-to-face contact is not in itself detrimental to the learning process/ and (4) what make any course good or poor is a consequence of how well it is designed, delivered, and conducted, not whether the students are face-to-face or at a distance."

Three areas for promising research are in media effectiveness related to student characteristics, effective course design, and teaching strategies. The research reports in these areas could be found under the catalogues of Student Characteristics, Course Development & Management, and Teaching materials/resources/media/schools in the Distance Education Library of The International Centre for Distance learning (ICDL) at the Open University. The web sites of above mentioned catalogues are as follows correspondingly:

http://www-icdl.open.ac.uk/cgi-bin/iscourse?DATABASE=Literature&ISEARCH_TERM=classification/03-20

http://www-icdl.open.ac.uk/cgi-bin/iscourse?DATABASE=Literature&ISEARCH_TERM=classification/05-00

http://www-icdl.open.ac.uk/cgi-bin/iscourse?DATABASE=Literature&ISEARCH_TERM=classification/06-00-00

In terms of the media effectiveness related to student characteristics, I found two recent research studies interesting.

One of the study is entitled "Profiling distance learners: investigating tutors' and students' perceptions of learning and study needs". The study is conducted by Marianne Cronin (Co-ordinator, Academic Skills Unit, Edith Cowan University, Australia) and Heather Sparrow (Instructional Designer, Edith Cowan University, Australia ). This paper reports on an action research project at Edith Cowan University in Australia, which explores the difficulties some distance students experience in undestanding and meeting the academic expectations of tertiary education. Students were surveyed to obtain information about their confidence in academic study, if, and where they had sought help with their skills, and the nature of their perceived difficulties. In addition, academic staff were questioned about their perceptions of students' study problems. A checklist of problem areas was compiled and was given to another sample of academic staff who rated each item for importance in the context of developing study skills material for distance learners. Eight broad areas of concern were also identified and ranked. The results indicated that more than half of the students sampled lacked confidence in their study skills. Few students sought assistance. The most common issues raised by students were related to assignment writing, time management and effective reading. Academic staff identified 37 key study issues. Rank ordering of the broad areas showed assignment writing, becoming independent learners, effective research and time management as the most important aspects for inclusion in study skills materials. All items listed were considered to be relevant. (Edited authors' abstract). This research report could be found in Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia (ODLAA) occasional papers no.3, February 1997.

The other of the study is entitled "Segmenting students in distance education: a quality perception-based approach". It is written by Woo Ka-Shing, School of Business and Administration, Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. A quality-based segmentation approach was used in this study to delineate the quality perceptions among different student segments in distance education at the Open University of Hong Kong. Based on the result of a factor analysis of 25 quality attributes, five dimensions were envisaged: quality of course materials; capability of tutors; tutorial center arrangement; studying atmosphere; and learning facilities. Subsequent cluster analysis on the five factors scores identified three distinct segments. The results of this study highlighted the pressing need for distance education institutions to customize service offerings for different segments, instead of treating all the students as a homogeneous group. (Author's introductory section). This article could be found in Open learning, vol.13, no.1, February 1998 pp.58-59.

These two research report are among the latest researches in field and will be of value to the authors of our textbook.