Despite the availability of distance education technology, Oregon
State University Extension Service educators have made limited use of
this equipment for delivery of educational programs to clients of the
state's 36 county Extension Service offices. Some Extension educators
may be hesitant to use distance technology because they are unsure
whether clients will accept distance delivered programming.
This project explored this issue, framed in the question: Is distance
education received favorably or unfavorably by volunteer adult learners?
A volunteer learner is defined as one who seeks to gain knowledge while
interacting with others who share like interests, a description that fits
many Extension Service clients. Other questions in the project were: How
much do volunteer learners learn from distance delivered instruction
compared to traditional instruction? and How much do volunteer
learners interact with instructors and each other in the distance classroom
compared to the traditional classroom?
Participants in the project were adults taking part in the MG training
program in February 1993 in five Oregon counties. These adult learners
participated in two 90-minute instructional segments; part one,
'Landscaping for Wildlife' and part two, 'Controlling Wildlife in the
Home Landscape.' Part one was delivered via satellite delivery. Part
two was delivered to participants in person by the instructor. In both
parts, learners were pre- and post-tested on the subject matter presented.
Learners also completed opinion surveys for each session. Audio tapes
were made of each session for analysis of learner-learner, and learner-instructor
interaction. Also, the Extension agents acting as downlink site
coordinators in the project were interviewed to assess their opinions of
the distance education session.
Comparison of the data indicate that learners felt the quality of
learning experience in both modes of program delivery was about equal.
Also, the testing component indicated that participants learned about
the same amount of material. Interaction analysis results indicated little
or no difference in the amount of interaction in both the traditional and
distance sessions. The results show that the effectiveness of distance
delivery of Master Gardener training instruction to adult learners is
equivalent to traditional delivery of training instruction for participants
in this study. / Graduation date: 1997
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/34485 |
| Date | 07 May 1997 |
| Creators | Rost, Robert C. |
| Contributors | Klein, Glenn |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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