Motivation for Distance Education

AuthorRazvan Ştefănescu; Ramona Dumitriu; Liliana Moga
Position“Dunărea de Jos” University Galaţi, Faculty of Economic Sciences
Pages442-446

Page 442

Introduction

The Lisbon Strategy ambitious aim to make the European Union "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world” implies a rethinking of the European education system, giving it more flexibility and efficiency. Among the ways to reach this objective it is the distance education development.

It is accepted the beginning of distance education or distance learning was in 1728, when a teacher named Caleb Philips made an announcement in Boston Gazette that he offered lessons to be sent weekly for his potential students. This kind of education was stimulated by the development of the postal service in the 19th century. In the twentieth century, new communication techniques were used in distance learning. Beginning with 1980s, the development of Internet services and CD-ROM technologies facilitated the distance learning programs proliferation.

In Romania, the distance learning experienced a significant development in the last decade. It proved to be much more efficient, with lower costs and comparable fees, than the classical type of education. Romanian universities, many of them with financial difficulties, fructified this opportunity offering study programs for distance learning. These programs would become, probably, more important beginning with 2008, when it is expected, because of the demographic processes from the early 1990s, a significant decrease in the number of students from the classical type of education. In these circumstances, the Romanian universities offer for distance learning has to become more attractive for the potential students.

The distance learning in Romania was approached in specialized literature especially from the reform education perspective. In this paper we study the main reasons for choosing the distance education. For this purpose we made an own investigation on a sample of distance learning students from the University “Dunarea de Jos” Galati. Although the results can’t be generalized, the perceptions expressed by these students could be considered indices of the motivation for distance education.

Page 443

Literature Review

In the specialized literature, distance learning is approached from different perspectives: the changes induced by new technologies, the particularities of teaching, the sociological aspects a.s.o.

Moore (1987) analyzed the effects of the new information, communication and computer based technologies to distance learning in the United States. These inventions determined significant changes in how distance education is designed, delivered and administrated. They also contributed to a new perception of distance learning1. Holmberg (1991) revealed the students’ perceptions to these new technologies2.

Ross (1998) studied the main techniques used in distance learning: E lectures, Ask-an-Expert, Mentorship, Tutor Support, Access to Network Resources, Informal Peer Interaction, Structured Group Activity, and Mutual help, stressing that each of them require from teachers ability in communication3. The special efforts that have to be made in teaching in the distance education systems were also revealed by Pereira and Prohmann (1999)4.

Some papers approached distance learning from a sociological perspective. They were concerned about the aspects such as repartition on age, gender, location, life roles, and ethnic background a.s.o. Holmberg (1995) found out that, in general, in the USA universities, distance learning students are significant older than the classical type of education students5. Several studies...

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