How To Learn Distance Education

Abstract
Recent issues in this journal and other prominent distance-learning journals have established the need for administrators to be informed and prepared with strategic plans equal to foreseeable challenges. This article provides decision makers with 32 trends that affect distance learning and thus enable them to plan accordingly. The trends are organized into categories as they pertain to students and enrollment, faculty members, academics, technology, the economy, and distance learning. All the trends were identified during an extensive review of current literature in the field

Informed Planning
Recent issues in this journal and other prominent distance-learning journals have established the need for administrators to be informed and prepared with strategic plans equal to foreseeable challenges. This article provides decision makers with 32 trends that affect distance learning and thus enable them to plan accordingly. The trends are organized into categories as they pertain to students and enrollment, faculty members, academics, technology, the economy, and distance learning. All the trends were identified during an extensive review of current literature in the field.
In a recent issue of Distance Learning Administration, Beaudoin (2003) stressed the importance for institutional leaders “to be informed and enlightened enough to ask fundamental questions that could well influence their institution’s future viability” (p. 1). Example questions included “How many faculty will we be needed in ten years? Will the notion of classrooms survive? Is the present structure of the institution viable? Will teachers and students need to meet on campus anymore? [and] Can the organization’s decision makers respond to new competitors?” Given these and other pressing questions, decision makers must clearly understand all influencing factors. Institutions need not only pose difficult questions, they must answer them from an informed perspective.

Methodology
The trends presented in this article were identified during an integrative literature review, conducted to summarize the current state and future directions of distance education. Books, journal articles, reports, and web sites were selected based on their currency (most references were published within the last 3 years) and relevance to distance education, information technology, and impact on the larger, higher education community. For this review, researchers collected citations identifying and supporting unique trends in a document that grew to over 140 pages. Themes emerged as the analysis progressed regarding students and enrollment, faculty members, academics, technology, the economy, and distance learning. The citations were then ordered in sub categories and specific trends, and condensed for publication.

Student/Enrollment Trends

1. The current higher education infrastructure cannot accommodate the growing college-aged population and enrollments, making more distance education programs necessary.
Callahan (2003) noted at a recent UCEA conference that the largest high school class in U.S. history will occur in 2009. In corroboration of this projection, a survey conducted by the US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics predicted that college enrollment will grow 16% over the next ten years (Jones, 2003). Reeve and Perlich, in projecting similar growth rates for the state of Utah, added this insight: “Because college and university attendance are not restricted to this ‘traditional’ age group, this presents only a partial measurement of the projected demand for higher education” (Reeve & Perlich, 2002, p. 3). With this growth in college-age population and enrollments and the need for more lifelong learning for adults, many institutions acknowledge that within the decade there will be more students than their facilities can accommodate (Oblinger, Barone, & Hawkins, 2001). Scalable distance-education models may provide a solution to capacity constraints growing enrollments place on the current higher education infrastructure.

2. Students are shopping for courses that meet their schedules and circumstances.
More and more learners are requiring flexibility in program structure to accommodate their other responsibilities, such as full-time jobs or family needs (PSU, 1998). With these constraints, students shop for courses that best accommodate their schedules and learning styles, and then transfer the credit to the university where they will earn their degrees (Johnstone, Ewell, & Paulson, 2002; Paulson, 2002; Carnevale, 2000c). Johnstone et al. (2002) refer to this notion of acquiring and exchanging credit at different institutions than the one they receive their degree from as “academic currency” and note that it is growing—as of 1999, 77% of all students graduating with a baccalaureate degree had “attended” two or more institutions.
Students’ demand is being supported and answered. In 1998, 83% of governors identified “allowing students to obtain education anytime and anyplace via technology” as a critical characteristic of universities in the twenty-first century (de Alva, 2000 pp. 34, 38). Given the demand and response, education is becoming a commodity, making consumers of students and putting them in a position to shop for the best deal (Johnstone et al., 2002; Pond, 2003; West, 1999; Dubois, 1996).
One result of the highly competitive e-learning market will be institutions that specialize in meeting particular niches in the market (Gallagher, 2003). Morrison and Barone (2003, p. 4) observed, “We can see the beginnings of the trend toward the unbundling of courses, credits, services, and fee structures.” Dunn foresaw a similar trend, predicting that “courseware producers will sell courses and award credits directly to the end user and thus, through intermediation, bypass the institutional middleman” (Dunn, 2000, p. 37). The transition may also blur the distinction between two- and four-year colleges and universities (Carr, 1999). In this context of greater “portability,” more educational “brokers” (e.g., Western Governor’s University, Excelsior College, Charter Oak State College, etc.) will exist (Pond, 2003). Further, as de Alva has asserted, “Institutional success for any higher education enterprise will depend more on successful marketing, solid quality-assurance and control systems, and effective use of the new media than on production and communication of knowledge” (de Alva, 2000, p. 40).

3. Higher-education learner profiles, including online, information-age, and adult learners, are changing.
Online students are becoming an entirely new subpopulation of higher-education learners. They are “generally older, have completed more college credit hours and more degree programs, and have a higher all-college GPA than their traditional counterparts” (Diaz, 2002, pp. 1-2). For example, Diaz has noted that online students received twice as many A’s as traditional students and half as many D’s and F’s.
The modern, traditional-age college students are unlike past generations. They are “interested in [qualifications from] small modules and short programs … and in learning that can be done at home and fitted around work, family, and social obligations” (Bates, 2000, p. 5). Information-age learners prefer doing to knowing, trial-and-error to logic, and typing to handwriting. Multitasking is a way of life for them, staying connected is essential, and there is zero tolerance for delays. Further, modern literacy includes not only text but also image and screen literacy—it involves navigating information and assembling knowledge from fragments (Oblinger et al., 2001; Jones & Pritchard, 2000).
Today’s adult learners differ still from traditional college-age students. They tend to be practical problem solvers. Their life experiences make them autonomous, self-directed, and goal- and relevancy-oriented—they need to know the rationale for what they are learning. They are motivated by professional advancement, external expectations, the need to better serve others, social relationships, escape or stimulation, and pure interest in the subject. Their demands include time and scheduling, money, and long-term commitment constraints. They also tend to feel insecure about their ability to succeed in distance learning, find instruction that matches their learning style, and have sufficient instructor contact, support services, and technology training (Dortch, 2003; Diaz, 2002; Dubois, 1996).

4. The percentage of adult, female, and minority learners is increasing.
Approximately “42 percent of all students at both private and public institutions are age 25 or older” (Aslanian, 2001, p. 4). Not only are they numerous, adult learners are the fastest-growing population in higher education. While the number of 18-24-year-old students increased only 41% between 1970 and 2000, the number of adult students increased 170% (Aslanian, 2001; “Lifelong,” 2002). Some factors that might influence this phenomenon include “the growth of continuing education programs, economic necessity, the rapidly changing job market, changes in the economy, and the simple aging of student populations” (Bishop, 2003, p. 374).
Like growth in adult learners, the percentage of women and minority learners is increasing. More women than men now enroll in college (57% of students are women), a trend supported by the fact that more women are entering the workforce (“Lifelong,” 2002). Among minorities, the proportion of women is even higher: “60% of Hispanic and two-thirds of African-American college students are women” (Cetron, 2003, p. 10). If enrollment follows population projections, higher education can expect this trend to continue—the Hispanic population in the U.S. is expected to increase 63% by 2020, reaching 55 million people (“Lifelong,” 2002).

5. Retention rates concern administrators and faculty members.
Studies comparing online course retention rates with traditional courses are inconclusive. This may be due to “the newness of online education, but individual schools and organizations are reporting that their online programs have as high or higher rates of retention as their traditional classroom offerings” (Roach, 2002, p. 23). Some claim that distance education attrition is high. A Chronicle of Higher Education article in 2000 reported that “no national statistics exist yet about how many students complete distance programs or courses, but anecdotal evidence and studies by individual institutions suggest that course-completion and program-retention rates are generally lower in distance-education courses than in their face-to-face counterparts” (Brady, 2001, p. 352).
Brigham (2003), in a benchmark survey of four-year institutions’ distance education programs, found that 66% of the distance-learning institutions have an 80% or better completion rate for their distance education courses; 87% have 70% or better completion. Diaz (2002) asserted, and others (Bolam, 2003; Allred, 2003) concur, that “many online students who drop a class may do so because it is the ‘right thing’ to do. In other words, because of the requirements of school, work, and/or family life in general, students can benefit more from a class if they take it when they have enough time to apply themselves to the class work … they may be making a mature, well-informed decision.”

Faculty Trends

6. Traditional faculty roles are shifting or “unbundling.”
“Rather than incorporating the responsibility for all technology- and competency-based functions into a single concept of ‘faculty member,’ universities are disaggregating faculty instructional activities and [assigning] them to distinct professionals” (Paulson, 2002, p. 124). Doing this involves a “deliberate division of labor among the faculty, creating new kinds of instructional staff, or deploying nontenure-track instructional staff (such as adjunct faculty, graduate teaching assistants, or undergraduate assistants) in new ways” (Paulson, 2002, p. 126). Distance education teams include administrators, instructional designers, technologists, and instructors/facilitators (Miller, 2001; Williams, 2003). The functions of instructors and facilitators then include being a “facilitator, teacher, organizer, grader, mentor, role model, counselor, coach, supervisor, problem solver, and liaison” (Riffee, 2003, p. 1; see also Roberson, 2002; Scagnoli, 2001).
The role of faculty members in distance education requires “some specialized skills and strategies. Distance education instructors must plan ahead, be highly organized, and communicate with learners in new ways. They need to be accessible to students [and] work in teams when appropriate” (PSU, 1998, p. 4). Distance faculty members must be experts in maintaining communication, because there is increased demand for student interaction in distance learning (NEA, 2000). Finally, they may have to assume more administrative responsibilities than is true in a residential model (PSU, 1998).

7. The need for faculty development, support, and training is growing.
Faculty members tend initially to try to use their conventional classroom methods to teach at a distance and then become frustrated when attempts are unsuccessful (Dasher-Alston & Patton, p. 14). In Green’s (2002) survey of the role of computing and information technology in U.S. higher education, chief academic and information technology officials rated “helping faculty integrate technology into their instruction” the single most important IT issue confronting their campuses over the next two or three years (p. 7). An EDUCAUSE survey supported the issue’s importance: “faculty development, support, and training” were rated the fifth overall strategic concern, as well as the fifth IT issue most likely to become even more significant in the next year. However, despite IT leaders’ rising concern over the issue, it is not yet among their top ten uses of time or resources (Crawford et al., 2003).

8. Faculty tenure is being challenged, allowing for more non-traditional faculty roles in distance education.
Faculty tenure status is coming under more fire as new state, private, and for-profit distance-learning universities are created. For example, Florida Gulf Coast University, a new distance-learning state university, and BYU-Idaho, a private four-year university, will not have tenured faculty members. The results of de Alva’s 2000 survey support this trend: governors rated “maintaining traditional faculty roles and tenure” as the least desirable characteristic of a twenty-first century university 
Since distance educators and administrators must secure instructors and course content experts, access to on-campus professors and their arrangements with the university become significant factors affecting distance education. Contributions to distance education rarely move faculty members toward tenure; therefore, dissolving tenure might make them more likely to participate in distance education efforts.

9. Some faculty members are resisting technological course delivery.
As long as distance education contributions are not considered in tenure and promotion decisions, and as long as professors have their own, traditional ways of delivering their courses, many faculty members will be reluctant to participate in online courses (Oravec, 2003). Concerning this reluctance, Dunn has predicted that many faculty members will revolt against technological course delivery and the emerging expectations their institutions will have of faculty members. Dunn forecast that some of the resistance will even be manifest through unionization and strikes (Dunn, 2000). Some have suggested the labor-intensive and time-consuming demands required to develop online modules as reasons for faculty resistance (Brogden, 2002).

10. Faculty members who participate in distance education courses develop better attitudes toward distance education and technology.
Despite some resistance, the results of a four-year study by McGraw-Hill showed a strong increase in overall faculty support for technology in education, with only 22% viewing it as important in 1999 and 57% in 2003. Instructors feel that Web-based technology is helping them achieve their teaching objectives (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2003).
A 2002 study similarly showed that “most teachers (85%) were not philosophically opposed to distance education” (Lindner, 2002, p. 5). Further, teaching at a distance improves perceptions of distance education factors: “Faculty members who had not taught distance education courses perceived the level of support as lower than those who had” (Lindner, 2002, p. 5). Carr (2000) found similar results: 72% of those who had taught distance-learning courses were favorable, compared with 51% who had not taught at a distance.

11. Instructors of distance courses can feel isolated.
Despite growing support among faculty members for distance learning, there are acknowledged drawbacks. “Design teams and instructors must anticipate isolation that can be felt by instructors who are separated from their students. This isolation may affect instructor satisfaction, motivation, and potential long-term involvement in distance learning” (Childers & Berner, 2000, p. 64). Childers and Berner (2000) anticipated the potential for feeling isolated and suggested that “feelings of isolation may be offset by the instructor’s ability to work with peers in other institutions or with students across the globe”