Date of Award
2004
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
Judith Russo-Converso
Committee Member
Jared A. Bucker
Committee Member
Maryellen Maher
Keywords
advanced degrees, applied dissertation, asynchronous content delivery, attitudes, chat rooms, classroom replication, colleges of education, correspondence courses, discussion boards, distance education, distance education doctoral programs, distance education master’s programs, educational institutions, e-mail, face-to-face instruction, hybrid content delivery, higher education, Internet, operating systems, professors, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, return on investment, surveys, synchronous content delivery, teaching methods, technology, technology tools, United States, video, Windows
Abstract
This applied dissertation was designed to determine the attitudes of professors teaching advanced degrees via distance education towards the technology tools used for distance education. Today many courses taught via distance education are little more than correspondence courses that use e-mail to send and receive instruction, coursework, and tests. Should distance education attempt to replicate the face-to-face classroom or are simple chat rooms and discussion boards enough? This study provides a heretofore unresearched view of how selected professors feel about the technology.
A survey was conducted among a group of distance education professors from various colleges of education throughout the United States. The results were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analyses.
This applied dissertation concluded that first, there is a much different attitude toward a distance education master’s program than toward a distance education doctoral program. Second, a simple majority would like to replicate the classroom via the Internet but a significant number of professors would like to explore new methods of teaching. Third, video appears to be emerging as a technology tool that could provide a very effective substitute for the face-to-face experience. However, the data is not conclusive. Fourth, operating systems other than Windows were viewed as important by 67% of respondents. Educational institutions could benefit from conducting return on investment analyses concerning supported operating systems before it decides to embrace or discard one.
This applied dissertation offers 2 major areas for continued research: an expansion of the baseline provided in this study, and a query into how should education at a distance proceed: synchronous, asynchronous, or hybrid content delivery.