A Review of Trends in Distance Education Scholarship at Research Universities in North America, 1998-2007

dc.creator	Randall S. Davies
dc.creator	Scott L. Howell
dc.creator	Jo Ann Petrie
dc.date	2010-10-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-08-12T11:21:56Z
dc.date.available	2015-08-12T11:21:56Z
dc.identifier	1492-3831
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/8d99d4607bb0422bab187af45ee800dc
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/29221
dc.description	This article explores and summarizes trends in research and scholarship over the last decade (i.e., 1998-2007) for students completing dissertations and theses in the area of distance education. The topics addressed, research designs utilized, and data collection and analysis methods used were compiled and analyzed. Results from this study indicate that most of the distance education research conducted by graduate students in this period of time has been descriptive, often addressing the perceptions, concerns, and satisfaction levels of various stakeholders with a particular distance education experience. Studies of this type typically used self-report surveys and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics. Validating the concern of many distance education scholars, there was a lack of graduate student research aimed at developing a theory base in distance education. On a positive note, projects directly comparing distance education with traditional face-to-face classrooms to determine the merit of specific programs declined significantly in 2007 as compared to 1998. This result might indicate that distance learning is becoming accepted as a viable and important educational experience in its own right. Another encouraging finding was the decreased emphasis on studies focused on technology issues, such as those analyzing the quality of distance education technology and questioning educators’ ability to provide an acceptable technology-enabled distance learning experience.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Athabasca University
dc.relation	http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/876/1602
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831
dc.rights	CC BY
dc.source	International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 11, Iss 3 (2010)
dc.subject	Distance education
dc.subject	graduate student research
dc.subject	research utilization
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	A Review of Trends in Distance Education Scholarship at Research Universities in North America, 1998-2007
dc.type	article