Research in Distance Education: A Status Report

By Farhad Saba. 2000

282 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Since the 1950s and expansion of social science research, distance education has been studied in comparison to face-to-face or classroom instruction. Although researchers continue to conduct comparative studies, their usefulness in revealing more information has diminished over the years; invariably, they have returned a \no signicant dierence" result between various forms of instruction. In recent years, researchers have moved beyond atheoretical, experimental comparative studies and have introduced new methods, such as discourse analysis, and in-depth interview of learners. These new methods overcome many methodological and theoretical limitations of the physical science view of distance education. These studies have further revealed the complexity of distance education, indicating the many variables involved in the concept. Starting with the core issue of instructional interaction and grounded on the theory of transactional distance, a new strand of research using methods related to systems dynamics, hierarchy and complexity theories, promises a more comprehensive understanding.

Subfields: Education, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a6160d7a8d8e0b1f5a45edc35eb2fdfaea6e77d8

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

1. Soung Hie Kim
2. Duke Hyun Choi
3. Jeoungkun Kim
4. Namin Shin
5. M. Nichols
6. Benjamin A. Kehrwald

In Social Psychology

1. Namin Shin
2. M. Nichols
3. Benjamin A. Kehrwald

Citations in the corpus

• ERP training with a web-based electronic learning system: The flow theory perspective (2007, background): “Thus, the concept of interaction is a common theme in distance education research (Saba, 2000).”
• SENSE OF COMMUNITY IN ONLINE COURSES (2006, unknown): “…research comparing outcomes between different delivery methods (Falvo & Solloway, 2004; Harper, Hedberg, & Bennett, 2000; Phipps & Merisotis, 1999; Saba, 2000) Experts in the field currently favor research that will study learners, learning, and student issues related specifically to online…”
• Transactional Presence as a Critical Predictor of Success in Distance Learning (2003, background): “The term “interaction,” on the other hand, is commonly encountered across a variety of distance education literature; indeed, interaction has been one of the most common themes of research in distance education (Saba, 2000, p. 4).”
• Fostering knowledge construction in university students through asynchronous discussion groups (2006, unknown): “…of authors point at specific weaknesses that account for the non-conclusive results of the studies (Archer, Garrison, Anderson, & Rourke, 2001; Fahy, 2002; Fahy et al., 2000; Gunawardena & Duphorne, 2000; Potter & Levine-Donnerstein , 1999; Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 2001; Saba, 2000).”
• How Does Distance Education Compare With Classroom Instruction? A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature (2004, unknown): “In addition to these reports, there have been a number of more or less extensive narrative reviews of research (e.g., Berge & Mrozowski, 2001; Jung & Rha, 2000; Moore & Thompson, 1990; Saba, 2000; Schlosser & Anderson, 1994).”