scholarly journals Beyond the Theoretical Impasse: Extending the applications of Transactional Distance Education Theory

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushita Gokool-Ramdoo
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Independent Study ◽  
Transactional Distance ◽  
Global Theory ◽  
Transactional Distance Theory ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Education Theory ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Transactional Approach

The development of theory in distance education is seen as crucial for its sustainability. Since the 1960s, there have been attempts to theorise distance education activities, to explain underlying initiatives and endeavours. Attempts at theorisation were started in the 1950s (Black, 2007). Wedemeyer (1961, cited in Garrison, 2000) introduced the concept of independent study or learning as opposed to correspondence education. Ever since, theory has been in ebullition, with various emerging tendencies. It has long been argued (for example Moore, 1993; Amundsen, 1993; Moore and Kearsley, 1996; Garrison, 2000; Saba, 2003) that there needs to be a global, comprehensive theory that can explicate all activities pertaining to distance education. While Moore has long claimed that the Transactional Distance Theory (TDT) is one such theory (Moore and Kearsley, 1996), there appears to be hesitance over accepting it as such, despite the fact that a transactional approach seems to be consciously or unconsciously adopted by theorists and practitioners alike. This apparent reluctance to hail the Transactional Distance Theory as a global theory has plunged distance education into a theoretical impasse from whence there was no much development. The emergence of two theoretical synergies has been noted (Saba, 2003, p.4) as has the need to develop a third and more comprehensive synergy. This research paper adopts the view that the theoretical impasse can be crossed with the recognition of Moore’s Transactional Distance Theory as the global theory that can explicate and ensure the sustainability of distance education in a technology-driven world. It further analyses its possible applications beyond simply the educational experience to encompass more general concerns like quality assurance and policy development. It is thus proposed that the Transactional Distance Theory be accepted as a global theory.

scholarly journals Policy Deficit in Distance Education: A Transactional Distance

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushita Gokool-Ramdoo
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Student Persistence ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Transactional Distance ◽  
Transactional Distance Theory ◽  
African Context ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Institutional Vision ◽  
Resource Deployment

This paper innovatively extends the application of transactional distance theory (TDT) to evidence-based policy development in Mauritius. In-depth interview data on student persistence from a range of stakeholders is used to understand the implications of distance education (DE) policy deficit. Policy deficit has surfaced as another dimension of transactional distance and student persistence as an appropriate measuring instrument. Transactional distance is salient in the non-alignment of national and institutional DE planning. Associated results are myopic institutional vision, stagnating national plans, poor resource deployment, and ill-understood opportunities for personal development. This research validates TDT as an instrument for policy development and concludes that supporting advocacy plans will help to achieve sustainable distance education in the region. Lessons from the field in Mauritius can be usefully adapted to the sub-Saharan African context (SSA). These preliminary indications require further research and discussion.

scholarly journals Adapting Structuration theory as a Comprehensive Theory for Distance Education: The ASTIDE Model

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Aktaruzzaman ◽  
Margaret Plunkett
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Transactional Distance ◽  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
International Level ◽  
Transactional Distance Theory ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Instructional Dialogue ◽  
Developing And Developed Countries

Abstract Distance Education (DE) theorists have argued about the requirement for a theory to be comprehensive in a way that can explicate many of the activities associated with DE. Currently, Transactional Distance Theory (TDT) (Moore, 1993) and the Theory of Instructional Dialogue (IDT) (Caspi & Gorsky, 2006) are the most prominent theories, yet they still do not represent a unified and comprehensive theory for DE. This paper provides a review of the existing literature on DE theories and identifies potential gaps in theorising distance education. Building on Giddens’ (1984) work, an innovative approach to theorising DE is proposed through the conceptualisation of the Adapting Structuration Theory In Distance Education (ASTIDE) model as a means to explicate DE operations and practices at the institutional and national/international level. It also presents evidence, from a larger study, of the necessity of a comprehensive model such as the ASTIDE constructed through an investigation into the DE systems of developing and developed countries.

scholarly journals Remote instruction and distance education: A response to COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-64
Author(s):  
James Lindner ◽  
Christopher Clemons ◽  
Andrew Thoron ◽  
Nicholas Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Transactional Distance ◽  
Transactional Distance Theory ◽  
Agriscience Teachers ◽  
Education Delivery ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Purposive Sample

The purpose of the qualitative study was to explore how middle and secondary school agriscience teachers define remote instruction and distance education. This research was conducted as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data for the study were collected during the time schools were closed and/or offering remote instruction. A purposive sample of seventeen agriscience education teachers in the States of Alabama and Georgia were selected for this qualitative study. Data were collected using a structured interview questionnaire and analyzed using constant comparisons. The conceptual framework of this study was developed using transactional distance theory and bound by strategic analysis. Findings showed that secondary agriscience education teachers did not collectively define remote instruction and distance education in the same manner. Some defined them similarly, and some noted specific differences in how the terms are defined and used. These teachers identified strengths and opportunities that should be exploited and weaknesses and threats that should be mitigated. Recommendations for training in appropriate use of distance education delivery strategies are provided. Recommendations for additional research into the impact on student learning are provided.

scholarly journals Master’s Students’ Perceptions and Expectations of Good Tutors and Advisors in Distance Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehmet Kara ◽  
Gülfidan Can
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Transactional Distance ◽  
Master's Students ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Transactional Distance Theory ◽  
Basic Technology ◽  
Perceptions And Expectations ◽  
Student Centred Learning

The purpose of this study was to explore non-thesis Master’s students’ perceptions and expectations of good tutors and advisors in distance education programmes. It also examined whether these perceptions and expectations are related to student characteristics including age, gender, university, programme, semester, and previous online learning experience. The current study was conducted within the framework of Transactional Distance Theory. Using a mixed methods approach, a questionnaire was administered to 143 students in four programmes in two universities in Turkey and interviews were conducted with 11 of these students. Results showed that good tutors and advisors in distance education provide a stimulating student-centred learning environment, have a caring and individualised interaction and communication with students, and have subject expertise and basic technology skills. The results of this study will improve distance education tutors and advisors’ practices in supporting graduate students’ education and research.

scholarly journals Exploration of Application Mode of MOOC-based Distance Education Mode in Digital Illustration

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (09) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Mei Zou
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Computer Technology ◽  
Control Experiment ◽  
Independent Study ◽  
Classroom Teaching ◽  
Teaching Mode ◽  
Teaching Resources ◽  
Application Mode ◽  
Learning Platforms

with continuous development of computer technology, online learning also becomes a new trend. MOOC-based distance education mode can meet students’ demand for superior teaching resources and offers help for students to carry out independent study and for teachers to change classroom teaching mode. This paper started from development status of MOOC and distance education to construct MOOC platform and design MOOC-based distance education mode. Then, control experiment was adopted to explore the application effect of such mode in Digital Illustration and analyze teaching effect differences of MOOC platform, and existing online learning platforms. The conclusion offers certain reference for further promoting MOOC-based distance education mode.

The Surprising Career of Federal Fair Housing Law

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Davis Graham
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Fair Housing ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Open Housing

Unlike the breakthrough civil rights legislation of 1964–65, which dismantled the South's Jim Crow system and led to rapid advances in job access and educational opportunity for minorities throughout the nation, the federal fair housing legislation of the 1960s produced little substantive change. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 quickly became case studies in the dominant tradition of presidential leadership in legislative reform, joining such modern classics as Social Security and the Marshall Plan. The Open Housing Act of 1968, however, belongs to a different era of national policy development.

scholarly journals Student Self-Responsibility in the Indonesian Distance Education System

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Daudi Lazarus
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Education System ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Independent Study ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Online Distance Education ◽  
Online Distance ◽  
Distance Education System

An ongoing concern in the distance education system in Indonesia is students’ lack of commitment to ‘independent study’. The purpose of this paper is to review conceptual frameworks that could empower Indonesian students to accept responsibility for their learning at a level to address the learning challenges of distance education.  The review shows that to meet quality and equity expectations in online distance education, independent study modes should promote students’ self-responsibility based primarily on both autonomy and capability.  The findings have the potential to add new perspective to education through supporting teaching and learning approaches in an online distance education class to enhance self-responsibility.  The paper suggests that students would take more control of independent learning if they accepted primary responsibility to determine their learning needs, resources, activities and outcomes.  To do this they need to view themselves as active agents with power to take independent choices that can result in creating their own approaches to resolve their learning limitation.

Dwight Eisenhower

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Nuclear Arsenal ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

Assessments of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s performance as the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and the nation’s thirty-fourth president have evolved across the more than seventy-five years from the conclusion of World War II in 1945 to the dedication in 2020 of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC. Historians have sought to explain Eisenhower’s unlikely rise from his modest upbringing in Abilene, Kansas, to his ascendance to command of western allies in the European theater. Selected over several senior officers in 1942 to command the invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch), Eisenhower initially experienced a series of setbacks and controversies resulting from inexperienced troops, incompetent subordinate leaders, a formidable enemy, and political deals with leaders of Vichy France. Although historians continue to debate his decisions regarding command and strategy in the European theater, they generally praise Eisenhower’s ability to maintain the western alliance amid national rivalries, professional jealousies, strong personalities, and competing political ambitions. Assessments of Eisenhower’s performance as president have undergone a remarkable transformation. Initially ranked in 1961 near the bottom in assessments of presidential leadership, he currently appears within the top tier. Initial accounts in the 1960s portrayed Eisenhower as a bumbling, docile president who appeared to be out of touch with the basic policies and operations of his administration. He appeared unwilling to address the major issues confronting American society, and to defer to his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, on matters of foreign policy and national security. For his critics, Eisenhower perilously, inflexibly, and imprudently relied upon the superiority of the nation’s nuclear arsenal to contain communist expansion, then allowed the Soviet Union to beat the United States into space and create a missile gap. Scholars collectively labeled “Eisenhower Revisionists” assessing declassified documents beginning in the mid-1970s forged a revised consensus that Eisenhower was clearly thoughtful, informed, and firmly in command of his administration. Moreover, the nation’s nuclear arsenal retained and even strengthened its predominance of power. “Postrevisionist” analysts generally concur that Eisenhower was clearly the dominant decision-maker and developed an effective policy development process, but they question the efficacy of some of his decisions and policies, including his management of crises in this dangerous period of the Cold War, his increased use of covert operations and propaganda, his approach to decolonization, and his efforts to ease tensions and slow the nuclear arms race.

Interaction in Distance Education

2018 ◽  
pp. 222-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evrim Genc Kumtepe ◽  
Nazife Sen Ersoy
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Distance Learning ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Transactional Distance ◽  
Interaction Interaction ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Comparisons ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Instructional Dialogue

Education is a product of the objects and actors in the process of interaction. Interaction is, therefore, an important factor that affects the quality and sustainability of education. For this reason, this section will focus on interaction and its theories and approaches which are a popular and versatile concept in distance education. In the first part of the chapter, the concept of interaction will be discussed with different dimensions and components. Interaction in the following section will be examined within the framework of Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance, Anderson's Interaction Equivalency Theorem, and Gorsky and Caspi's Theory of Instructional Dialogue. At the end of the chapter, the nature of the interaction in distance learning will be discussed in the context of the studies on instructional dialogue and the cross-cultural comparisons will be addressed to the issue of the role of interaction in distance settings.

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