Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Idaho, Summer 2006. / Major professor: Martha C. Yopp. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-154). Also available online in PDF format.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 1985. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [211]-214.

M.Comm. / Na aanleiding van die argumente gevoer in die agtergrond en rasionaal van die studie, is die essensie van die problematiek gesentreer rondom die derde wereldkonteks wat gekenmerk word deur veral swak vervoerstelsels en 'n nie-effektiewe posstelsel. Uit die dialektiese interaksie met die navorsingterrein blyk dit vir die navorser of daar plek is vir verbetering ten opsigte van doeltreffende bestuur van die afstandsonderriginstansie. Aangesien dit egter vir die navorser essensieel is om handelingsriglyne te beskryf wat die praktyk sal verbeter, is daar besin om 'n strategie te benut waardeur tot `n beter verstaan van die problematiek gekom kan word, en wel deur studente te betrek wat die kliente van die diens is.

D.Cur. / The purpose of this research study was to develop and describe a model for clinical accompaniment for learners who follow a distance education programme in nursing. The future of health services relies worldwide on programmes in nursing with a practical component which will equip the learner to provide safe and effective nursing care. In spite of attempts throughout the world to bridge the gap between theory and practice, there is still confusion about who is primarily responsible for clinical accompaniment of learners in nursing. South Africa is experiencing a shortage of nurses, and these numbers could be supplemented by distance education. The challenge arose to develop a scientifically based functional model that would be easily understandable. Such a model could address the gaps in clinical accompaniment and lead to better outcomes of nursing care. It could contribute to more nurses gaining access to possible further training.

D.Litt. et Phil. / Technikon SA has a high attrition rate, which seems to indicate that students are not ready for distance education and that firsttime students at Technikon SA are of a lower educational quality than such students at other technikons. The purpose of this study was therefore to predict which students are not ready for formal enrolment in distance higher education, thereby avoiding a potentially negative situation by identifying those prospective students who could benefit from support programmes. Methods followed This study, which makes use of the Kember Model of student attrition in distance higher education, investigates the extent to which different students, who can potentially be differentiated according to 15 biographical characteristics, are close to or far from academic success. The assumption is made that the identified eight different academic performance groups are more or less ready for technikon distance education. Approximately 13 590 TSA students' registration records and academic performance were investigated over a period of four years and was used to assign the students to one of the eight academic performance groups. The collected data was analysed by using CHAID-analysis as well as correspondence analysis. Results The research question/hypothesis for this study is as follows: Certain cognitive variables (previous academic performance) iii and non-cognitive variables (biographical and other typifying student characteristics) are satisfactorily better than others at distinguishing between the different distance educationready groups of Technikon SA students. The results appear to indicate that at least 9 of the 15 variables are able to distinguish between academic performance groups and to predict academic performance. The variables supporting this research statement are placed in order of increasing importance: Study group formation, work status, value of senior certificate, age group, marital status, previous activities, value of last school examination symbols and cultural group formation. It would appear that these variables assist in defining the term "distance education readiness" by helping to identify the students that are in this way predisposed to it. Generally, it would appear that older white married female students are academically more successful than the other groups, while black unemployed female students are academically least successful. This may be partially explained by the large differences in the educational opportunities and socioeconomic backgrounds of people in South Africa. However, this study was unsuccessful in providing a clear picture of how to identify those students

The purpose of this study is to examine faculty perceptions of instructional satisfaction and support when teaching distance education at a university located in the southeastern United States. Two research questions were included to determine what factors of instructional support faculty perceive as promoting/impeding their satisfaction when they participate in distance education, and to determine if there are any meaningful and significant relationships or differences between faculty perceptions of instructional satisfaction and demographic information. Data were collected via email using Google Docs, then compared to determine any significant difference in any of the categories. Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, ANOVA, and the follow-up Tukey HSD test were used to determine if there were significant differences among faculty members in different demographic categories. Male participants are more satisfied with technology support, appropriate workload, and fair tenure process than females. Females are more satisfied than males with the potential growth opportunities. Overall Caucasians are more satisfied than African-Americans and participants aged 40-49 are more satisfied than any other age participants when teaching distance education. Generally, faculty with higher academic rank (Professor and Associate Professor) are more satisfied than lower academic rank faculty (Assistant Professor and Instructor). Tenured faculty are more satisfied than non-tenured faculty, and full-time faculty are more satisfied than part-time faculty. Participants who earned the highest salaries are more satisfied than participants earning lower salaries. Finally, generally the participants with more years of teaching experience were more satisfied than participants in the early years of their career. Tenure is a positive factor and factor workload is a negative factor impacting faculty satisfaction when teaching distance education.

COVID-19 forced all education online during Spring 2020 requiring face-to-face higher education faculty to immediately redesign their courses for an online modality. This dissertation studied faculty who used Canvas as their Learning Management System to investigate how faculty leveraged affordances and navigated constraints of the platform, specifically in Pages and Assignments, when they designed and redesigned their courses; how their pedagogical and Canvas training affected their choices; and the ways in which their experiences affected their workload and stress levels. This study employed a three-phase methodology: a) a Qualtrics survey with open and closed-ended questions; b) 11 faculty were interviewed; and, c) Canvas course sandboxes of the interviewees were observed via Zoom. The results indicate that although the majority of faculty had some kind of pedagogical or Canvas training prior to the pandemic, they felt extreme stress and higher workload during spring, but lower stress and workload during summer as they prepared for fall since they had more time to work. The majority of faculty worked nonstop throughout 2020, even during their Spring Breaks and summer vacations; they did so without additional pay while writing, designing, and redesigning courses, and only a few faculty were paid for additional summer training. The research was analyzed through a convergent framework of Critical Digital Pedagogy, Interface, and Affordance theories, which formed the Pandemic Teaching Cycle and development of a new educational affordance taxonomy.

The present study sought to examine the teacher-efficacy for literacy instruction (TELI) of instructors who teach in an online environment. The phenomenological methodology sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What pedagogical practices do instructors use to provide literacy instruction in an online environment? (2) How do instructors perceive their TELI in an online environment? and (3) What impact, if any, will a Professional Learning Community (PLC) focused on Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory have on TELI in an online environment? The study consisted of a group of seven online instructors. The researcher the acting as facilitator administered the initial interviews and exit interviews and adapted an Action Research PLC with activities modeled after those that influence self-efficacy. In initial interviews, the participants described their literacy practices as mostly dialogic conversations with students in which they provide examples and non-examples for students. They used some aesthetic strategies, but their practices were mainly efferent and low taxonomically. The initial interviews also revealed that instructors felt that they did not know their students well and that their literacy instructional practices were mostly silenced by the dominant role of the standardized curriculum. It was observed that teachers sourced their confidence in TELI in an online environment not from the practices they used in an online environment, but in the practices they once used in the traditional classroom which are now silenced in an online environment. During the Action Research PLC, the researcher and participants collaborated in creating questions and instructional resources that helped students take a more aesthetic stance while still meeting the standards of the curriculum through the use of aesthetic questions and discussions, semantic association, and narrative-centered learning. The PLC structure also incorporated the four influential experiences on self-efficacy. The results of the exit interviews revealed that the teachers either remained confident or increased in confidence in their TELI in an online environment. In addition, viewing TELI through Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory aided in closing the gap in transactional distance observed by the participants because they were able to engage in more positive dialogues with their students. The PLC provided a creative space for teachers to work and deliver their personalized instruction enabling them to voice their once silenced literacy instructional practices. It can be determined that the transactions that teachers have with students mediated in an online environment have a far greater impact on TELI. Viewing literacy instruction through Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory provides a reflective experience where teachers revisit whether or not an instructional practice can improve their teaching through more aesthetic dialogue thus improving their TELI.

The admission process at higher education institutions has not adapted for online distance education classes taken in high schools, such as those offered by the Florida Virtual School. The purpose of this study was to determine whether online distance education courses taken in high school can serve as an indicator of student success in post-secondary education. An honors program at a large public research university provided the data examined. This honors program stored online distance education information in a database, which allowed for analysis. Presently, the institution's primary undergraduate admission office does not collect or store this type of information. I used SPSS Statistics to calculate logistical regression on this data. My goal was to discover what effect the high school online distance education variables had on the outcome of graduating in four or six years. Graduation rate is a key metric for colleges and universities as an indicator of success. For this reason, I wanted to determine through this study whether high school online distance education assisted in predicting which students will graduate. At least two stakeholders will find this information useful. Admission officers and, more specifically, honors admission officers will gain more insight into the student selection process as this study examines students in the top 10% of the incoming class. The other group, future researchers, will learn from this study and other new studies for even more understanding on this topic. Although the results indicated that high-achieving Florida Virtual School students do not graduate at higher rate than students who have not completed distance education classes, more research is required to understand how the other 90% of student applicants are affected by distance education courses completed in high school.

This study examined the impact of video feedback (VF) as a teaching tool for responding to writing activities and assignments across disciplines and whether or not VF can help instructors facilitate dialogic exchanges between students and teachers. I conducted three case studies with three different instructors from three different disciplines: psychology, history, and nanoscience. To determine the potential of video feedback to facilitate dialogic pedagogies, this dissertation examined the presence of transformational leadership theory (Parkin, 2017), the voices of teaching and learning (Collison et al., 2001), and gesture theory (Bavelas et al., 2014; Peräkylä & Ruusuvuori, 2008) for the paralinguistic activity in the VF content to determine if the presence of these theories position students as what Buber (1965) referred to as a "Thou" and dismantle the authoritative discourses (Bakhtin, 1994) in higher education that hinder learning. This dissertation found that teachers experienced meta-reflection and self-dialogue from making videos, which is dialogic. This study also found that instructors can facilitate dialogic exchanges that undermine authoritative discourses if they can utilize their paralinguistic activity that video affords them. This study also revealed that using VF requires overcoming a significant learning curve, and that Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) can help teachers improve how they negotiate feedback variables like the assignment, discipline, pedagogy, and learning outcome that can lead to dialogic feedback.