From: eugene@cs.athabascau.ca (Eugene Rubin)
Subject: Final comments in the BANRES conference
Originator: banres-m@udevdiv.unibase.sk.ca
Reply-To: <banres-m@udevdiv.unibase.sk.ca>
Organization: Unibase Telecom Ltd.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 08:03:41 GMT


Final comments on Research in Distance Education (BANRES)

Well.... I must admit that while the various comments contributed to
this conference lacked a bit of connectivity.... they were certainly
interesting.  I would like to comment on a few issues that arose and
then try to present a short conclusion to the conference.

I raised the issue of institutional concerns driving research agendas
instead of student or learning concerns.  Several people also commented
on this issue. Why is this happening?  One reason is that distance
education is still quite marginalized... still viewed as the poor
cousin of the established educational systems and in many institutions
just an "add-on".  Thus, there are few resources given to promoting
research.  A few institutions have established research centres (my
own, as an example, The Dutch Open University, The University of
Southern Queensland in Australia ...etc...) but even they are quite small
compared to research activities in various university schools of
education.  Moreover, the pressure is great to make what you do be
relevant to the institution.  Another reason is that it is quite
difficult to do distance education research when your subjects are at
a distance.  Our rates of participation in various research projects
are often quite low, and we have had to learn various means to
encourage student participation, which often costs money (i.e. follow
up long distance telephone calls)).  A third reason is the difficulty
of obtaining research funding.  In Canada, distance education has
hardly been considered a funding priority by the federal research funding
agencies.... often they don't even know what category to place it in.
Thus, the individual researcher is often on his/her own with little
chance for support.

How can we change this..... well, it easy to say but hard to do.  We
must lobby the administrators and the government to directly support
research in the field.  I will not belabor this point, as it is
obvious.

Another issue which concerns me (and which several people jumped on as
elitist..... but I stand by my views) is the quality of the "research"
in the field.  If you read the literature regularly and look at a
variety of publications , one sees an increasing amount of research
based articles.  But one also still sees quite a few descriptive
articles (the "here's what we do" and "here's what our program looks
like") which are interesting but not exactly research.  Also, much
that passes for research is really evaluation.  Yes, there may be a lot of
numbers and assorted data in the article, but it is often a post-facto
analysis of what has already happened.  Finally, I have the opportunity
of seeing quite a few articles that get submitted to the journal I
edit.  I must admit that for many of the submissions, the scholarship
is not exactly great.  More distance educators (perhaps the ones that
are being trained in the various fledgling distance education degree
programs that are now being established) need to be trained in
research methods, quantitative and qualitative analysis and report
writing.

As to the issue of research in the area of what Dick Cornell has
called "high touch"..... well, I'm pretty sure I would support this 
kind of research, I guess..... but I'm not sure exactly what it is.
The danger is, according to Dick Cornell, that we will ignore the
human element in distance education.  I guess the same could be said
of most educational research in general.  The DEOS-L computer listserve 
which operates out of Penn State University had an interesting 
discussion recently about "interaction" and how critical it was for 
"good" distance education.  It raised real important issues, but
had little relationship to the research literature or theory.  Mostly
people said things like "Gee, I think interaction is critical in the 
course that I teach."  Certainly we desperately need to explore
"motivational" and "interaction" variables which influence student
performance and attitudes within distance education..... but let's do
it systematically and as precisely as we can manage so that we are not
arguing by opinion or warm feelings.  If Dick Cornell's views are a
reaction against institutional and "high tech" research, well... good
for him... I believe he's right to be concerned.  But. please... let's
be clear about what we're talking about.  Let's define the problem
well before we develop a research agenda to explore it.

I strongly encourage the various participants in this conference to 
explore and debate many of the issues that arose here by remaining
active in the various listserves and conferencing systems that carried
this conference.  And read the literature!  Many of the questions that
were posed in this conference have a base in the DE literature (and
many have nothing!).  Ask your library to carry the main journals in
the field.... (I myself try to regularly scan the Canadian Journal of
Distance Education, the American Journal of Distance Education, the
ICDE Bulletin, Distance Education (Australia), Open Learning (Britain),
as well as the journal I edit, Research in Distance Education.)

And thanks for your participation.  Feel free to contact me by e-mail
if you want to discuss anything further.

Gene Rubin

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 | Eugene Rubin <eugene@cs.athabascau.ca>        Box 10,000          |
 | Centre for Distance Education                 Athabasca , Alberta |
 | Athabasca University                          CANADA  T0G 2R0     |
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