Since publication of the book, more studies have been designed and implemented that push the preliminary research farther into discovering more about the differences between distance learning and other teacher methods.
Student Characteristics
Research suggests distant students bring basic characteristics to their learning experience which influence their success in coursework. Distance education students:
Some research done (or information compiled from other sets of research)
at the California Distance Learning Project (http://www.otan.dni.us/cdlp/distance/deresearch.html)
emphasizes the need to further study student characteristics that make
them more successful during distance learning. The four main ones that
they highlight are:
Some other information the California Distance Learning Project site provides, defines some characteristics that the classes themselves should offer students. This list falls somewhere between effective course design and teaching strategies:
Extensive pre-planning and formative evaluation is necessary. Teachers cannot "wing it". Distance learners value instructors who are well prepared and organized (Egan, et al., 1991). Learners benefit significantly from a well-designed syllabus and presentation outlines (Egan, et al., 1991).
Structured note taking, using tools such as interactive study guides, and the use of visuals and graphics as part of the syllabus and presentation outlines contribute to student understanding of the course. However, these visuals must be tailored to the characteristics of the medium and to the characteristics of the students.
Teachers must be properly trained both in the use of equipment and in those techniques proven effective in the distance education environment. Learners get more from the courses when the instructor seems comfortable with the technology, maintains eye contact with the camera, repeats questions, and possesses a sense of humor (Egan, et al., 1991).
The specific reasons why the researches found these results to be significant contributions to the field were not readily present on the website, so I can only infer from the value from the way the material was presented. In the first set of results, the student characteristics, those characteristics were listed as decisively different attributes that the typical classroom student. This is in juxtaposition with the second set of results, describing course preparation, which asserted that these are the elements of ALL good teaching. This difference would make me assume that the later set is not so much of a contribution to distance learning as a whole, but a simple reiteration of what is already known about teaching and the distance learning teaching is no different. On the other hand, the singularity of the attributes of a good' distance learning student, I think are significant contribution to the study of distance learning because of two reasons: 1) they provide what could be come to be seen as a criterion for students taking distance learning classes. For example a large university may want to offer some basic classes with huge enrollments via distance learning. They could devise an entrance test to assess the students' closeness to the optimum distance learning profile, using the characteristics above. Students who passed' could enroll in the distance learning class, and those that did not would be required to take the classroom edition, where it was more probable they'd be successful.; 2) they are a set of reminders of the checks and balances educators should build into the distance learning classes, for example they should recognize that some of their students are not as motivated, thus they would build in some checkpoints along the way to make sure they were keeping up with assignments, papers, readings, etc.
Another study (http://www.icc.cc.ms.us/projects/brock/orlando/Biblio.htm) done by Dr. Clifford Black is interesting because it shows a difference in students' opinions about a class and their actual performance. In the words of the study: " the survey showed that attendance was best in lecture-style classes and those same students felt they had a much better chance of success in a lecture dominated classroom. However, success rates were much higher for students involved in a mixed repertoire of teaching." This study points out that the most successful teaching strategy was a mix of distance and in class. I thought this was interesting because this is similar to the format of our class. Even though the in class portion does not continue after the first three days, I'm assuming that past experience has pointed out the -importance of those face-to-face days to student perception of the quality of the class.
Dr. Black's studies are an important contribution to the field of distance learning research because, again, they go beyond the simple distinction of distance or classroom based learning by showing a mix of the two gave the best results for the specific material taught in the study. As with the first study, what this one points to immediately is some attributes of learning that course developers need to take into account when deciding what to teach to whom. As well some longer term implications are suggested as further research questions: why is there a need for face-to-face contact even for a short period of time?