Rapport in Distance Education

dc.creator	Elizabeth Murphy
dc.creator	María A. Rodríguez-Manzanares
dc.date	2012-01-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:13:08Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:13:08Z
dc.identifier	1492-3831
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/d79e46dde59f4ba98e31084f73ca5327
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/15790
dc.description	Rapport has been recognized as important in learning in general but little is known about its importance in distance education (DE). The study we report on in this paper provides insights into the importance of rapport in DE as well as challenges to and indicators of rapport-building in DE. The study relied on interviews with 42 Canadian high-school DE teachers. Findings revealed that rapport is necessary in DE because of the absence of face-to-face communication. Challenges to building rapport relate to the geographic dispersion of students, the asynchronous nature of DE, teacher workload, limits of the software, teachers and students not seeing the need for rapport, and DE traditions. We identified six categories of rapport-building in DE as follows: Recognizing the person/individual; Supporting and monitoring; Availability, accessibility, and responsiveness; Non text-based interactions; Tone of interactions; Non-academic conversation/interactions. We break the categories into subcategories and provide indicators for each one. The indicators might also be used in contexts of DE teacher professional development as a springboard for discussion, or, more prescriptively, as guides to DE teacher behaviour. A follow-up study using a more fine-grained focus on specific indicators might provide insights into specific rapport-related behaviours.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Athabasca University Press
dc.relation	http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1057/2076
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831
dc.rights	CC BY
dc.source	International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 13, Iss 1 (2012)
dc.subject	Distance education
dc.subject	online learning
dc.subject	rapport
dc.subject	teachers’ beliefs
dc.subject	high school education
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.title	Rapport in Distance Education
dc.type	article