Evaluation of Distance Education: the Student Perspective

Distance education will never replace the traditional classroom but it does provide a suitable alternative. The convenience distance education affords students helps account for its rapidly growing enrollments. Even more impressive is the anticipated rate for online enrollments is expected to far surpass the overall rate of growth for higher education. These larger enrollments make distance education programs very enticing to universities and colleges. While distance education has found a permanent place in higher education, very little research has been conducted to ensure it remains a viable means of providing an education. Identifying the criteria or guidelines for an effective instrument and evaluation system for evaluating distance courses, with web-based courses in particular, is the main focus of this book. The comprehensive study conducted adds to the limited amount of research found to address whether traditional course evaluations are appropriate for evaluating distance courses; focus was placed on student perspectives since an even a smaller amount of data was found regarding student beliefs.