Perhaps the most systematic and influential writer on distance learning since the 1960s has been the German sociologist and educator, Otto Peters. In his research, Peters looked at examples of education conducted through correspondence, radio and television throughout the world, establishing a large statistical database and a huge bibliography of qualitative studies. System of educational action determined by rational means-ends thinking. Students and teachers actions are predominantly determined by social norms. Teachers and students actions are predominantly determined by technical rules.
Teaching aims at preserving the institution.
Students are punished on the basis of conventional sanctions. They fail because of decisions made by the authority of teacher, headmaster, director of education. Students fail because of their inability to cope with the reality of learning at a distance. They drop out of their courses, for instance. Over the long run, Peters tended to see the spread of distance learning as being, like industrialization, an historic inevitability, since it was both more egalitarian and also brought great efficiencies.