Reconsidering Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World

Meeting Students' Learning Needs

David Kember

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781134144655
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Distance learning is now more prevalent in the developing world than ever before. This book reconsiders the suitability and success of established modes of distance learning for current contexts in the developing world. It examines what adaptations are necessary to suit shifting needs including:

• the move from elite to mass higher education
• increased emphasis on knowledge base economies
• greater demand for lifelong learning and professional development
• the effects of technical and societal changes
• demand for post-secondary education.

Drawing upon research into students' conceptions of, and approaches to learning, this critical analysis of the state of open and flexible learning examines the characteristics, needs and learning approaches of students, considering whether or not current provision is successful, what changes are necessary, and, crucially, how student retention can be improved.

Part I
Introduction

Chapter 1

Modes of learning in post-secondary education

Scope of the book

This book deals with post-secondary or higher education, which leads to the award of a formal qualification, normally a degree or diploma. Less formal courses which do not lead to degrees are outside the ambit. This excludes courses, like adult education ones, undertaken purely out of interest or pleasure.

It does not deal with what is often called conventional higher education, taught principally through face-to-face classes. I do not feel particularly comfortable with the term ‘conventional’, as higher education has been through such turbulent times recently that it is hard to see any form of it as stable or conventional. However, I am sure readers will understand what is implied; so I will use the term for convenience.

Issues addressed

My initial involvement with modes of post-secondary education, other than the conventional form, was at the University of the South Pacific, where it was known as extension studies. Since that time I have been through external studies, distance education, open learning, flexible learning and e-learning. Other terms have also been used.

The transition through the titles is partly fashion and partly a response to technological developments. Hopefully, it should also reflect a development in practice, as knowledge of how to provide an education outside the classroom has been built up. There should also be evidence of a transition to suit changes in society over time.

The more significant modes of adult, distance and open learning have each produced a substantial body of literature which defines the mode and provides a rationale or philosophy explaining its contribution to society. The literature associated with the other modes, such as flexible or e-learning, has been rather more descriptive, with less philosophical discussion of the potential impact on society. There has, though, been considerable speculation about the potential contribution which technological advances can contribute to post-secondary education.

The aim of this book is to make a critical appraisal of whether these modes of education have fulfilled their charters. Each has started with distinct aims and specified a type of student for whom the mode was suited. Adult and open education promised to contribute to fundamental changes in society. Have these modes of education delivered these promises? Are the needs still relevant in view of changes in society since the charters were unveiled?

Each of the modes of education originated in the West and their defining literature was mainly developed by Western scholars. The number of students in developing countries taking open and distance education courses must have overtaken the numbers in the original developed societies. The issues which gave rise to these modes of education in the West are not necessarily manifest in the same form in developing societies. The characteristics of typical students can also differ. How do these Western models of education suit the needs of developing countries and their students? Have adaptations in format been made to Western models the better to suit the developing context?

As there have been changes in post-secondary education heralded by changes of title, societies have also been changing. This raises the pertinent question of whether the modes of education have adapted to shifting needs. This question is relevant because economic and societal developments have impinged on the original rationale for adult and open education.

Before dealing with these challenging questions, it is necessary to examine the most significant modes of post-secondary education. How were they characterised? Why was the new mode seen as an advance on what had gone before? What promises were made and what outcomes were anticipated? Here the introduction is brief – sufficient simply to define and characterise the mode. In-depth examination of the questions above is left to subsequent chapters. The sequence is historical.

Adult education

Formal definitions of adult education define it simply in terms of a minimum age. The Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), for example, defines an adult student as one aged twenty-five or over on entry to a course (1987, p. 29). The only point which might be discussed is the cut-off age. The CERI definition is reasonable for Western countries with mass higher education. However, in developing countries, with limited entry to conventional higher education, students denied entry to the latter years of secondary school or university tend to seek entry to other forms of post-secondary education at an earlier age. Whether they should be classified as adult students is open to debate.

Beyond the rather bland definition there is a voluminous literature documenting a rich history of the movement and its aspirations for social and political change. The adult education movement developed in the train of the Industrial Revolution in the West. The labour movement believed that emancipation of the working classes could be achieved by providing a fuller education than the state was willing to give.

These philosophical and political foundations of adult education were a major influence on the formation of the Open University in the United Kingdom (UKOU) and on the literature on open learning, as will be discussed in Chapter 3. The adult learning literature, and particularly the concept of andragogy, has impacted upon the literature associated with other forms of post-secondary education. This will be elaborated upon in Chapter 6.

Distance education

The simplest definition of distance education I could find was from Perraton (1982, p. 4). He describes it as ‘an educational process in which a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space and/or time from the learner’. This serves well to determine what is distance education and what is not, but does not give much idea about its nature.

The definition of distance education which has probably been most widely quoted, particularly in the early literature, comes from Keegan (1986, p. 49). He lists the main elements as:

• the quasi-permanent separation of teacher and learner throughout the length of the learning process; this distinguishes it from conventional, face-to-face education;
• the influence of an educational organisation both in the planning and preparation of learning materials and in the provision of student support services; this distinguishes it from private study and teach-yourself programmes;
• the use of technical media – print, audio, video or computer – to unite teacher and learner and carry the content of the course;
• the provision of two-way communication so that the student may benefit from or even initiate dialogue; this distinguishes it from other uses of technology in education;
• the quasi-permanent absence of the learning group throughout the length of the learning process so that people are usually taught as individuals and not in groups, with the possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialisation purposes.

Given the diversity of courses offered at a distance, it has not been hard to point out courses which do not fit neatly within this definition. The most contentious point is possibly the fourth. Two-way communication is an ideal which many distance education courses fail to achieve. The problem is not confined to distance education, though, as far too many university courses that are taught face-to-face lack a meaningful two-way dialogue.

The final element is also worth noting. It is almost certainly true that the majority of distance education students do learn as individuals. It is one of the central theses of this book, though, that distance education could make more use of off-campus

group work than is currently the case. I also argue that there has been insufficient exploration of flexible learning modes combining distance education with face-toface learning and/or learning in groups.

Open learning

Rather than attempting succinct definitions of open learning, the literature consists of a listing of aspects of openness against which courses or programmes can be assessed. Fay (1988, p. 3) puts it less kindly, describing open learning as ‘a ragbag or portmanteau term’. The list which seems to be quoted or cited most often is by Lewis and Spencer (1986). They proposed that courses be assessed on a spectrum from closed to open for each of a number of facets. The list below obviously shows the open or more desirable end of the spectrum:

• open entry;
• study anywhere;
• start any time;
• tutors on demand;
• attendance at any time;
• flexible sequence;
• negotiated objectives and content;
• negotiated learning method;
• negotiated assessment.

In Kember and Murphy (1990) we pointed out the problem with this list by showing that the progressive primary-school class, attended by David Murphy’s son, displayed far more of the aspects of openness than typical university distance education courses, which used the term open. The proponents of open universities would, no doubt, be taken aback to learn that they were lagging behind primaryschool classrooms in degrees of openness, which suggests problems with the definition.

The first problem is that the final four elements in Lewis and Spencer’s (1986) list subsumes in open learning elements of student-centred learning. Studentcentred learning initiatives result from educational models or philosophies, so strive to increase freedom and student initiative within classrooms. Open learning has largely resulted from political and social pressures, so has concentrated on removing participation barriers. The two are therefore quite distinct.

The second problem is that the list is over-idealistic. The first part of the list can be attributed to open learning, but practical and economic constraints mean that providing courses with all of these elements towards the open end of the spectrum is unrealistic. A more useful guide to open learning would result by pruning the list to elements of openness that are practicable and associated with removing barriers to participation, so are reasonably common. Within this book I will restrict discussion to the following four elements:

• open entry;
• study anywhere;
• freedom to study at a time chosen by the student within a specified semester;
• a high degree of openness over the choice of courses to make up a degree programme.

At the time of the formation of the UKOU, open entry was an educational revolution. It meant that students could enrol for a degree without having the A-levels needed for conventional universities, or having results high enough to get in ahead of the rest to obtain one of the restricted number of places at university. The transition from elite to mass higher education has reduced the impact of open entry policies in the West, but they are still the major rationale for open universities in developing countries.

The next two elements of openness provide the freedom to study at a time and place convenient to the student. This is important for those in full-time employment or with family-care responsibilities. Notice that I have placed conditions on the degree of openness associated with time. I am aware of a few correspondence courses which offered students the chance to start and finish at any time they wanted, but in higher education this has usually been seen as unrealistic.

The final degree of openness is derived from one of the principles of adult learning or andragogy. This recognises that self-directing adult learners are capable of deciding their own learning needs. This implies that they should have a major input into designing their own courses. Individual negotiation of objectives and content, implied by Lewis and Spencer’s visualisation of open learning (1986), has not normally been seen as realistic by open universities. Instead, it has been common to offer considerable flexibility over choice and sequence of courses to make up a degree programme. There are often few restrictions on combinations of courses which can be taken, so course selection resembles a smorgasbord.

It is also worth commenting on whether more openness is necessarily better. The rallying cry for open learning and the lists of elements of openness seem to imply that the more elements there are towards the open end of the spectrum, the better the course. This is not necessarily the case, though, as can be illustrated by openness to study where the student chooses. Complete openness would imply no meetings of any sort, which rules out the development of a sense of belonging and types of learning activity such as laboratory work and group discussion. It could, therefore, be argued that a compromise position often benefits the students more than full openness.

Distance and open learning are not synonymous

Daniel (1999, p. 292) noted that the European Commission has introduced the term ‘open distance learning’ and that others commonly make use of the sister term ‘open and distance learning’. He believed that combining the terms had led to endemic ‘conceptual fuzziness’ in the fields.

There has certainly been disagreement in the literature. As Daniel has noted, some people use the terms open and distance learning loosely or interchangeably or in combination, so presumably equate the two. Manwaring (1986, p. 3) and Thorpe and Grugeon (1987, p. 2) believe that distance learning is a subset of open learning. Lewis and Spencer (1986, p. 17) believe it is a misconception to equate open and distance learning and give examples of forms of education which clearly fail to meet the definition of distance education yet are widely accepted as being open in nature.

My own position has been made clear by the heading to this section. I agree with Daniel (1999) and Lewis and Spencer (1986) that there is not a symbiotic relationship between distance education and open entry, the most significant of the elements of openness. Making a commitment to open entry does not oblige an institution to adopt distance education. Most adult education and continuing studies providers have open entry policies for courses taught face-to-face. Nor does distance education imply open entry in every case. Many distance teaching universities have a range of entry policies for the different types of programme they offer. These might range from completely open entry for basic courses, through minimum-age requirements or professional experience, to having a highclass undergraduate degree for entry to postgraduate degrees.

Flexible learning

Moran and Myringer (1999, p. 60) define flexible learning as ‘approaches to teaching and learning which are learner-centred, free up the time, place and methods of learning and teaching, and use appropriate technologies in a networked environment’. Like the early definitions of open learning, it is akin to an advertising pitch for an educational ideal.

Perhaps more useful in characterising flexible learning is the recognition that it had three parents: face-to-face teaching, distance education and technology. Flexible learning then becomes an educational system which makes appropriate use of the teaching methods enabled by the three parents to meet student needs and aims towards the ideal in the above definition.

Given the three parents, it is not surprising that the greatest use of the term flexible learning has been in dual-mode institutions, which have traditionally offered parallel courses by face-to-face and distance teaching. Conventional face-to-face universities and single-mode distance teaching universities have lacked one of the parents, so have tended to use other terminology.

E-learning

The term e-learning seems to have been applied to just about any form of learning which makes use of a computer. More recently the term has mainly been applied to the use of networked computers and the internet.

This, of course, covers a multitude of modes of education and types of teaching. Most of the major forms of teaching and learning can be enabled or facilitated in some way by computers and the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Author and contributor biographies
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Open learning
• Part III Adult learning
• Part IV Distance education
• Part V Flexible and e-learning
• References