Access Barriers Experienced By Adults In Distance Education Courses And Programs: A Review Of The Research Literature

Distance education in the American education system continues to expand. However, despite technological improvements and nearly universal accessibility to the Internet, adult learners continue to experience barriers to accessing distance education courses and programs. Building on prior work by Cross (1981) and Darkenwald and Merriam (1982), this literature review focuses on the institutional and student barriers experienced by adult learners. Institutional barriers consist of program costs, resource availability, lack of equipment and infrastructure, scheduling, instructional concerns and technical assistance. Student barriers include costs and motivators, feedback and teacher contact, alienation and isolation, student support and services, and a lack of experience and/or training. Recommendations for addressing institutional barriers include continual evaluation of noninstructional areas, faculty training, and adoption of new technologies. Recommendations for alleviating student barriers include providing opportunities for distance students to interact with faculty, other students, and other parts of the campus, providing toll-free phone support to all areas of the campus, requiring faculty to have online office hours, and developing electronic tutorials for new distance students. The use of distance education in the United States continues to grow. A recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics (Waits & Lewis, 2003) documented the increased use of distance education in a multitude of academic and technical disciplines in postsecondary institutions. Private industry and business, along with governmental agencies, have also recognized the attraction of learning “any time and any place” in providing education and training opportunities for their employees. Relieving adult learners of the time and place constraints of a traditional classroom, distance education can present a new set of constraints, or barriers, to accessing educational opportunities. These barriers can be significant for adult learners, many of whom are “non-traditional” students, i.e., older, employed, needing job skill updates, seeking career change, or returning to college after a long absence. These students may also be single parents or transfer students, who, because of family responsibilities, work commitments or geographic limitations, are seeking to access educational opportunities at their convenience. Distance education offers the promise of unfettered access for these individuals; however, at present, the promise remains unfulfilled. Barriers to Adult Participation in Learning Activities In the United States, research on adult participation in learning activities dates back to the 1920’s (Courtney, 1992). Much of this research was, and still is, focused on why adults participate in learning activities instead of examining why they do not. Perhaps this is because it is “usually even harder to find out why people do not do something than why they do” (Cross, 1981, p.97). Indeed it is Cross’ (1981) work which stressed the importance of understanding why adults do not participate in learning activities. Cross adapted prior research from Carp, Peterson and Roelfs (1974) and described three distinct types of obstacles, or barriers to learning activities: situational, institutional and dispositional. Situational barriers can be derived from personal factors, such as job and home responsibilities that inhibit participation. Institutional barriers are constructed, perhaps unknowingly, by the educational institution. Examples include difficulty in registering and paying for classes or a lack of appropriate advising. Dispositional barriers are related to adults’ own attitudes and feelings. Many adult learners may be apprehensive or fearful of new educational opportunities, especially if their earlier educational experiences were not positive ones. Darkenwald and Merriam (1982) added an informational barrier to the model proposed by Cross (1981) that focused on the difficulties adults experience with obtaining information regarding educational opportunities. Research on Access Barriers to Distance Education Despite its long history, distance education has not been the subject of extensive educational research (Zirkle, 2003). However, barriers to access are one area that has been examined through a number of studies. Stammen (1995) categorized barriers to distance learning as technical, relating to access to technology; structural, involving budgeting, training, and technical support; and attitudinal, including reluctance to use technological tools. Berge, Muilenburg and Haneghan (2002) listed barriers to distance education as situational, epistemological, philosophical, psychological, pedagogical, technical, social, and/or cultural. It appears much of the recent research on barriers to distance education opportunities appears to have condensed Cross’ (1981) earlier discussion on three categories of barriers for adult participation into two for the purposes of distance education: institutional barriers and student barriers (Zirkle, 2001). This emerging category of student barriers includes aspects of both the dispositional and situational barriers identified by Cross (1981). For the purposes of this review, the barriers to distance education for adults will be examined within this framework. Institutional Barriers Educational institutions have developed distance education programs of various types, many times without considering all the factors involved in implementation. As a result, several institutional barriers have been identified, including: • program costs • resource availability • lack of equipment & infrastructure • scheduling • instructional concerns • technical assistance Distance education is a cost-intensive business (Galusha, 1998). Start-up costs can be prohibitive, as computers, servers and networks must be established. Ongoing support for technical assistance services, and continual software upgrades must be budgeted as well (Yap, 1996). These costs can be passed on to adult learners in the form of additional fees that can prohibit participation. Another institutional barrier can be the tendency for library services and scheduling/registration assistance to be only available to on-campus students. Distance education students cannot be physically present to access these resources, so alternatives must be in place (Cho & Berge, 2002; Galusha, 1998). Marketing courses to students at a distance can also be a challenge. Flowers (2001) described the need for institutions to better advertise distance courses to facilitate awareness. Related to program costs, the availability of proper equipment for offering courses at a distance can present barriers (Galusha, 1998). Instead of reducing the costs of education, the equipment involved with information technology and distance education actually increases it (Gladieux & Swail, 1999). The lack of equipment and infrastructure for distance education is especially pronounced in poorer, rural areas (Kerka, 1996; Yap, 1996). Simply offering courses can be a significant barrier (Zirkle, 2003), as educational institutions must have “buy-in” across the campus to offer degree programs at a distance. Degree requirements cannot necessarily be met if only some academic units participate in distance delivery efforts. Scheduling courses at specific times for satellite or videoconferencing can be a difficulty as well, as adults work a variety of schedules. Finding faculty to teach at “off” times can also be a challenge (Zirkle, 2001). There are numerous instructional barriers that can affect adults in distance classes. Many faculty may only have experience in a presentation style of teaching, which is inappropriate for an online course. Additionally, some faculty are unable to appropriately pace and respond to student questions in a non-continuous communication environment (Wagner, 1993). Some course content such as specific psychomotor skills or interpersonal “soft skills” may not be easily taught through distance education. Coursework must be continually assessed and revised to meet the needs of diverse adult learners at a distance. Distance education also entails a host of teaching and learning practices, such as course creation for distance delivery, responding to emails, updating course sites, and holding chat sessions, all of which are more labor and time intensive than on-campus classes (Levine & Sun, 2002). Distance education programming relies heavily on technical assistance. The lack of an effective institutional network of technical assistance is a significant barrier (Berge, 2002). Adult learners who have difficulties logging into videoconferences or Internet course sites and are unable to obtain assistance will not remain tolerant for long. Having technical assistance resources in place and maintained is a key to any successful distance education program (Cho & Berge, 2002; Galusha, 1998; Levy, 2003; Zirkle, 2003)