Student expectations for distance education.

Abstract

Students enrolled in both onsite and online management courses were surveyed to ascertain their expectations regarding interaction with professors and peers, the impact of outside obligations on course performance, and the amount of time required for completion of course activities. Findings indicated that the expectations of those enrolled in DE courses do differ from those in traditional classroom courses in some instances, however, not all.

Introduction

Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. The future is outside the traditional campus, outside the traditional classroom. Distance learning is coming on fast.--Peter Drucker (1997)

While overly pessimistic in our opinion, Drucker's point is well taken when one considers the rapid growth of distance learning in education and industry during the last decade (Salas and Cannon-Bowers, 2001). Although several factors have driven this upsurge in nontraditional delivery of instruction, developments in technology including the user-friendliness of computers and their affordability, as well as the demand for "just in time" learning that accommodates students' lifestyles have been primary motivators (Ricketts, Wolfe, Norvelle, and Carpenter, 2000). And the demand for distance learning shows no signs of abating. Distance learning is a broad term that encompasses both distance education (DE, a term commonly used in academia) and distance training (a term commonly used in industry). This paper examines expectations of university students enrolled in DE courses as defined by Bordeau and Bates (1997): education that is computer based, remote, or asynchronous and supported by some instructional system.

For universities and colleges, DE provides the opportunity to service more students who desire an education. For would-be students, the positives associated with DE are obvious. According to Webster and Hackley (1997), DE will continue to play an important role in higher education because it offers the advantages of increased convenience, access to courses which may not be available locally, and flexibility for those students who wish to combine an education with full-time employment and family responsibilities. DE may also provide an unintended, yet valuable, experience related to career development. The experience gleaned by students who have already been exposed to DE, which was once considered a novel medium, provides a distinct advantage to would-be learners--a sense of familiarity and self efficacy for learning virtually.

Distance education is not without its skeptics. Faculty frequently express apprehension with DE because of the frequent technological problems associated with delivering the material (which may lead to student frustration and poor evaluations) (Crow, Cheek and Hartman, 2003). Likewise, concerns related to student learning and outcomes persist, despite several indications that DE results in comparable, if not better, educational results (e.g. Merisotis and Phipps, 1999; Sankaran, Sankaran and Bui, 2000). Despite these uncertainties, the demand for DE courses appears to outweigh the reservations some articulate. As academics; however, we continue to wonder "what are the differences between a traditional onsite education and one obtained at a distance?" It is commonly accepted among many professors that students' perceptions of and expectations for a course are frequently a harbinger of their course evaluations, and it is an equally well accepted fact that students' expectations for a course frequently underestimate the amount of time and effort required to excel. In the following sections, we develop hypotheses regarding students' expectations in the areas of teacher-student and student-student interaction, external interference, and course instruction and preparation in regards to distance learning. While DE has been praised for its flexibility, we believe that management students enrolled in DE courses will expect to have significantly less interaction with both their peers and professors on a weekly basis. Part of this expectation may result from the fact that students have not considered how interaction can occur outside of a traditional classroom setting where the teacher and other students are physically present. This expectation may actually be quite realistic, as many professors do not take full advantage of technological tools to promote interaction (Parikh and Verma, 2002; Jenkins and Downs, 2003). These courses often lack the necessary interactivity for many learning activities, including the opportunity for group discussion and question-and-answer sessions (Parikh and Verma).

Although some suggest that a successful DE course requires the creation of a learning environment that encourages interaction (Berge, 1999), research has found DE courses to be less community-oriented than a traditional classroom (Powers and Mitchell, 1997; Perreault, Waldman, Alexander, and Zhao, 2002). As pointed out by Crow et al. (2003), some students enrolled in DE courses may feel "isolated and out of touch" (p. 335), and the lack of professor and peer interaction can lead to a higher level of frustration. Interaction with professors and peers can serve as a strong influence on students' acceptance and perceived usefulness of technology in the learning process, particularly in management education (Martins and Kellermanns, 2004). Alavi, Wheeler, and Valacich (1995) found that learning outcomes are typically maximized when student involvement and interaction are high. Based upon these previous findings, the following is hypothesized:

Business students enrolled in DE courses will expect to have significantly less interaction with their classmates and professors on a weekly basis than students in onsite courses. Jenkins and Downs (2003) found that a higher percentage of DE students are full-time employees and convenience and reduced travel time were the two primary reasons students choose to enroll in a DE course. An increasing number of college students are employed full-time and have more outside responsibilities that create "barriers to 'traditional' education" (Christensen, Anakwe and Kessler, 2001, p. 275). We believe that these extra demands on students' time create more interference in their learning process.

Business students enrolled in DE courses will expect to experience significantly more interference in their course performance due to outside obligations than students in onsite courses. Prior research (Powers and Mitchell, 1997) found that students perceived an Internet-based course to be more time consuming than a traditional classroom. In a study of community college students, Roblyer (1999) found that students who prefer DE courses placed greater value on controlling the timing and pace of learning, while students enrolled in traditional classes valued personal interaction with their professors and peers. These prior findings indicate that students may be required to spend more time outside the virtual classroom on course activities and less time engaged in actual instruction.

Business students enrolled in DE courses will expect to spend significantly fewer hours engaged in course instruction, and more hours engaged in outside course preparation, than students in onsite courses.

Methods

Research Setting, Participants, and Procedures

As part of an effort to improve departmental teaching, students enrolled in sixteen Management courses (eight DE and eight onsite) at a large, regional university in the southeast were invited to complete an anonymous web-based survey aimed at ascertaining the opinions and expectations of the students with regard to the courses in which they were currently enrolled. No extra credit or incentive was offered for participation and individual student participation was not tracked.

Survey Instrument

The survey instrument used for this study was comprised of questions used in previous research on DE (Christensen et al., 2001; Martins and Kellermanns, 2004), and original questions, created by the current researchers, specific to the researchers' interests. In addition to demographic data, students were asked to report on their course expectations. Specifically, they were asked to respond to the following statements using a 5-point Likert-type scale where one was "Not at All" and five was "Extensively":

* How much interaction do you expect to have with your classmates on a weekly basis?

* How much interaction do you expect to have with your professor on a weekly basis?

* To what degree do you expect outside obligations (work, family, etc.) to interfere with your course performance? Students also responded to two questions in terms of hours per week, ranging from zero hours to nine or more hours.

* How many hours do you expect to spend on either actual or virtual classroom instruction for this course?

* How many hours do you expect to spend on outside preparation and activities for this course?

Results

The questionnaire was completed by 199 (96 men, 103 women) students. Forty-seven percent of participants were enrolled in onsite courses, and 53 percent were enrolled in DE courses. Among those enrolled in the onsite courses, approximately 54 percent were undergraduates and 46 percent were graduate students. Graduate students made up a larger percentage of the sample population for DE, accounting for 60 percent of those enrolled in our online courses.

Independent-samples t tests were conducted to evaluate the hypotheses that students in distance learning courses expect to have less interaction with their classmates and their professors than do students in traditional onsite courses. The first was supported, t (197) = 6.111, p < .05, with distance students (M = 2.82, SD = .818) expecting less interaction with other students than their onsite peers (M = 3.52, SD = .800). However, contrary to expectations, distance students (M = 3.05, SD = .726), do not anticipate less interaction with their professors than do onsite students (M = 3.13, SD = .806), t (197) = .737, p > .05.

Also contrary to expectations, DE students (M = 2.83, SD = .860) did not expect outside obligations to interfere with school work to a greater degree than did onsite students (M = 2.82, SD = .972), t (197) = -.073, p > .05.

With regard to time spent related to course work, findings were mixed. DE students (M = 1.87, SD = 1.010) did not expect to spend significantly less time than their onsite peers (M = 2.07, SD = .942) involved in course instruction, t (197) = 1.496, p > .05. However, DE students (M = 2.50, SD = 1.102) did anticipate spending significantly more time on outside preparation and activities for their courses than did onsite students (M = 2.10, SD = .974), t (197) = -2.761, p < .05.

Discussion

Although all of the findings were not consistent with expectations, certain contextual factors may have had a direct bearing on this. For example, while the hypothesis related to interaction with other students was supported, expectations related to interaction with professors were different than anticipated. It is believed that both of these factors may be influenced by students' previous experiences with DE. Fifty eight percent of respondents had taken at least one DE course in the past, and therefore had some standard of interaction from which to establish their current expectations. An informal poll of faculty teaching these courses online revealed that each faculty member requires significant interaction at the professor to student level--typically in the form of moderated discussion boards, chat sessions, or even coming to campus for exams. However, many do not require group or team projects in their DE courses, hence diminishing the perception of student to student interaction.

Previous research has indicated that those who pursue DE frequently do so because outside obligations prohibit attending traditional lecture-based courses (Christensen et al., 2001; Jenkins and Downs, 2003). As such, it was expected that the DE students would anticipate a greater potential for interference from these life activities; this appears to have been unwarranted. As anticipated, a greater percentage of the DE students held a job outside of being a student; 86 percent of the DE population held outside jobs compared with 71 percent of onsite students. However, when looked at as a whole, 80 percent of all study participants held a job outside of being a student. Hence, outside responsibilities are likely to plague both groups. The role of past experience with distance courses may have played a role here, too. Because the majority of DE students had taken courses online in the past, it is reasonable to assume that they have developed methods of coping with the influence of outside obligations so as to prevent their interfering with course performance.

Findings for the last hypothesis also make sense when one considers the level of experience that the DE students in this sample possessed. Because previous courses have likely involved the use of discussion boards, chats, etc., DE students do not expect to spend less time in course instruction activities than do their peers. In this instance, it is assumed that their experience in previous courses has reframed their definition of what it means to be involved in course instruction and they see these activities as the corollary to onsite lecture and class discussions. It is also possible that having already been exposed to the current courses' syllabi and professors' stated expectations influenced the responses here.

Finally, the DE students' expectations with regard to the course requirements for preparation and work outside of normal class hours appeared to be consistent with the realities of online education and previous research. Powers and Mitchell (1997) found that students expected a DE course to be more time consuming than a traditional course. Even when students are highly involved in synchronous activities, the majority of work to be completed in a DE environment requires that students take initiative and complete most activities on their own time. A positive outcome of this increased outside workload, however, is that DE students can experience a higher level of learning than their counterparts on campus (Maki and Maki, 2002).

Conclusion

The current study was conducted to provide insight into the expectations of students enrolled in online management courses in order to improve the educational experience of these students. With greater understanding of students' expectations, faculty can better plan and execute their courses so that they address students' curricular expectations and include communications to correct faulty expectations early on. Despite the fact that all of the hypotheses were not supported here, the information gleaned provides insight into the expectations of students for their educational experiences. Findings of our study indicate that while DE students anticipate less interaction with their peers, they do not expect to have less interaction with their professors. Efforts to promote interactivity of both types are strongly recommended because students are most satisfied when their online learning experiences are highly interactive in nature (Jen, 2005), and for pedagogical reasons (Alavi et al., 1995). When interactive activities are carefully planned, they can lead to both greater learning and increased motivation (Berge, 1999; Northrup, 2002). Wyatt (2005) found that students felt online instruction was more academically demanding than traditional classroom instruction. Students' expectations for the amount of effort involved in DE courses reflected this sentiment. This is taken as a positive sign. As with traditional college courses, the combination of realistic expectations for the amount and type of work, plus the motivation to do well is often a harbinger of success.

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Shanan Gibson, East Carolina University 

Michael Harris, East Carolina University

Shanan Gibson, Ph.D. and Michael Harris, Ph.D. are Assistant Professors of Management with responsibilities for teaching both online and traditional face-to-face courses.